A Wild Sheep Chase – Nationalism in the Postwar Japan

Name: Course Code: Date: A Wild Sheep Chase – Nationalism in the Postwar Japan The novel follows the Narrator as he attempts to find the starred sheep. He had received a starred sheep photograph from his friend the Rat and on publishing it, he found himself entangled in a mess of finding the sheep which is a symbol beyond the reach of an ordinary man. This essay details analysis of the novel from a socio-political perspective dissecting the events in the wider context of Japanese political history. The author figuratively uses some entities like the sheep to signify some important elements that have been integral to Japanese political landscape. The story is a continuation of the Rat trilogy in the Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, and A Wild Sheep Chase that represents a search for identity in post-war Japan. The political aspect of this novel is a continuation of the Hear the Wind Sing and the plot to criticize the Japanese nationalists’ identity in postmodern Japan. The prologue details the burial attended by the Narrator of her ex-girlfriend whom they slept together around 1969 but he struggles to remember her name. She met her at the Shinjuku anti-war demonstration and they meet again a year later on November 25, 1970, in the school cafeteria. The ex-girlfriend is an allegorical reference to the students’ movement during this time which sought to restore power the Emperor in a revival of the immediate post-Meiji Restoration society which they called the “Showa Restoration. The student movement had died off and the once vocal students’ idealism had plunged them into boredom and pointlessness. On this very day, was the Seppuku of a famous Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima who had tried unsuccessfully to rally a far-right paramilitary group to overthrow the democratic government of Japan and reinstate the emperor. Seppuku is a ritual committed to claim honor Rather than being killed for a crime such as treason which Mishima had committed. Mishima had failed to rally the Self Defense Forces to join his course and he had opted to perform a ritual known as Seppuku. The Narrator had been a member of the far-right groups as a student and he had lost interest in their nationalist ideologies to even care about the widely publicized seppuku ritual performed by Mishima on this very day. The students had been a very vocal group in Japanese politics earlier preoccupied with far-right ideologies but the Narrator, a former student movement member who is now disinterested by what he fought for barely a decade ago. The prologue foreshadows the course of the novel about Japanese nationalism and identity in the post-war era. The marriage of Narrator’s life has hit the rocks and his wife leaves him for his friend whom she had been sleeping with. Both had started a translation company which had changed into an advertising firm and they had increasingly become bored with their lives partly because they had lost their passion and belief in what they were to do. The lack of motivation even in his business can be attributed to the new reality of many Japanese Student Movement members. When he receives a request from his old friend Rat to feature a picture of s starred sheep in one of his adverts, he finds himself entangled in finding the identity of a mysterious animal. First, a shadowy wealthy figure who is a far-right backer threatens to end his business if he does not find the starred sheep he had featured in the advertisement. The shadowy guy is known as The Boss and has an unlimited influence in the national media and has a political network tying him into the government as well as the pr...