The Problems of the Absence of an Inner Self and of Moral Education in Contemporary Japan Echoed in Convenience Store Human

Abstract

The limitations of humanism have emerged, and the absence of an inner self in contemporary human beings has also become a genuine concern these days. Will the role of literature, which has mirrored human life and the inner self, be terminated? How can a human being make ethical judgments in literature, an expression of ethics, if a human being has no inner self? To answer these questions, in this article, I focused on Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Human, especially on Keiko Furukura, the protagonist, who lacks an inner self and figures out that this absence has an effect on ethical matters. I also considered the one part of development of humanism into post-humanism in literature, during the analysis of the novel, examining the symptom of the "internal empty cave," a phrase used to describe the "minds" of young people, which is seen as a pathology of modern Japanese society and a problem of the moral education proscribed by the Japanese government. Furthermore, I reviewed the role and ethics of literature through an analysis of the Convenience Store Human, concluding that it warns and implicates contemporary society as it is aiming to move from a humanist to a post-humanist worldview.