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Post by Alan Wong on Oct 27, 2015 16:26:07 GMT
One of the practices of Kappaland mentioned by the author is how when a Kappa loses a job, that Kappa is slaughtered and the body's flesh used as meat. This is a practice which is supported by "a statute covering the butchery of the worker" (p.82). I believe this is a reference which mocks the way the majority of workers were treated during the beginning of the twentieth century and to a lesser extent, how some are still treated today despite the "modern world" we live in. Specifically, the allusion pokes at how the value of a person can be so totally connected with their work productivity and ability to function in corporate environments. This is why the Kappa workers are disposed of if they lose their jobs; if they do not work, they are completely useless to society. Literally being pieces of meat is seen as more helpful than someone who can't, or does not, work. The part about the statute may be referencing how the laws in many heavily industrial economies seem to take complete advantage of the workers. Workers may not have any protections and subsequently be forced to work in unsafe or disgusting conditions. The wages they are paid may be kept at a level far below what is needed to pay for necessities or may not be a fair wage for the amount of work they are doing. Unions which use collective bargaining power for the benefit of workers may be outlawed. Despite the law originally being intended to guide and aid society, it instead tramples upon those working to maintain it. This is what I believe Akutagawa finds fault with and is mocking.
Discussion Questions:
1) Do you believe the kappas really existed?
2) Why was it that the kappa who knew of the way back to the human world aged in reverse?
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Post by Caden Hong on Oct 28, 2015 4:35:54 GMT
Personally, I don’t think the Kappas really existed because otherwise, the police officer would not have sent the narrator to a mental institution. If a kappa was a real living creature, the police officer would have had some idea of what the narrator was talking about because according to the narrator, he did say earlier on that people were aware of kappas (thought it may not be to the extent of kappas knowing humans). Also, at the end of the book, it looked like the narrator’s stories were becoming more incoherent and less creative. It read as if he inserted his experience of the mental institution onto Pep the judge kappa to make it feel like they were sharing the same struggles. This entire story felt like an unpolished, segmented imaginary story to me the entire time I was reading it. As for your second question, doesn’t it reveal at the end that all kappas knew how to get to the human world? Otherwise, the kappas would not have been able to visit the narrator in his hospital.
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Post by Teng Lai Chang on Oct 28, 2015 20:04:56 GMT
For the first question, like Caden Hong, I also don't think the Kappas actually existed. At first, I thought this was set in a fictionalized world so the Kappas were real in that sense, however, as I read to the end, it seems that this Kappaland was all in the mind of the narrator. In the end, it was revealed that the narrator was actually hospitalized and was suffering from dementia praecox (it seems that it's called schizophrenia now) and, thus, being the reasons for his hallucinations and delusions. These Kappas and his interactions with these Kappas in the Kappaland could have simply been based on real humans and experiences he had before he suffered from dementia praecox. If that were to be the case, then the Kappas and Kappaland are merely representations of the actual people and events he faced prior to his illness (similar to the author, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who also suffered from schizophrenia).
For your second second question, maybe the Kappa who aged backwards represents the very person the narrator wants to be. It seems this Kappa is perfect in that he lives a life of peace and calmness. He is not "prey to to the covetousness of the older person, nor does he wallow to the lust of the younger man" (134). In addition, aging in reverse may be equivalent to going back in time, back to the beginning, or going back to your original/initial place/world. In this way, we can say that the Kappa aging in reverse is a representation of a pathway for the narrator to go back to his world where he originally came from or it can mean that the narrator is going back to his original (mental and unstable) state (not necessarily as in "going back" to having dementia praecox because I doubt he was already mentally stable, but probably "going back" as in having to face the medical treatment and hospitalization).
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Post by Mina Kaneko on Oct 29, 2015 18:26:11 GMT
I don't think the Kappas exist either, as the author makes a point of showing us a different reality in the hospital. Not only does he indicate the patient suffered from schizophrenia, but he also points out that there are lilies in the room where the patient indicates. The patient also claims he is reading from Tok's "Collected Poems," but really it's a telephone book. Although his delusions of the Kappa world are quite absurd, there are truthful insights within them; showing us that the patient is perceived as crazy gives the story a harsh reality that perhaps Akutagawa himself identified with. The story of the Kappas is a clear, imagined reality that no one else can see or understand.
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