The Problems of the Absence of an Inner Self and of Moral Education in Contemporary Japan Echoed in Convenience Store Human
- Authors
- Sang-hyon, Nam; Jaejin, Yu
- Issue Date
- 6월-2020
- Publisher
- KNOWLEDGE HUB PUBL CO LTD
- Keywords
- Convenience Store Human; Sayaka Murata; Moral Education; Humanism; Post-Humanism; Absence of an inner self
- Citation
- FORUM FOR WORLD LITERATURE STUDIES, v.12, no.2, pp.252 - 265
- Indexed
- SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- FORUM FOR WORLD LITERATURE STUDIES
- Volume
- 12
- Number
- 2
- Start Page
- 252
- End Page
- 265
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/55425
- ISSN
- 1949-8519
- 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.
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Collections - College of Liberal Arts > Department of Japanese Language and Literature > 1. Journal Articles
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