Lit 365: Morrison

Study Guide: Ishikawa Jun’s “Jesus of the Ruins” (Yakeato no iesu; 1946)

Terms/Figures/Places

 Yakeato generation (yakeato sedai  焼跡世代)

generation (yakeato 焼跡世代): “The boy in this short story belonged to
a generation of war-orphans numbering approximately 123,000 by the end o f the war
in 1945. The child literally defies description because the ‘taxonomy of his kind had yet
to be invented.’ The taxonomy that Ishikawa was looking for in 1946 when the
short-narrative was composed was shortly to define an entire generation that would
come to be known as yakeato sedai or
sedai or the ‘generation coming of age amidst the
 burned-out
 burned-out ruins after the war.’ Ishikawa was born in 1899 and set a literary precedent
 when he used the title
title phrase to signify
signify an orphaned child growing
growing up in the
 burned-out ruins of metropolitans
metropolitans where the immediate
immediate black-market economy 
signified the struggle for daily survival.
su rvival. Ishikawa’s indistinguishable
indistinguishable usage of the term
 yakeato introduces the possibility
possibility of a generation
generation that would rise like
like a phoenix out of 
the ashes of the long
long war” (Rosenbaum, 2006, 2; for more, see Legacies
see Legacies of the
 Asia-Pacific War: The Yakeato
Yakeato Generation,
Generation, edited by Roman Rosenbaum, Yasuko
Claremont (2012), as well as Rosenbaum’s article “Ishikawa Jun and Postwar Japan”).

 Yatsushi やつし:
やつし: From the verb yatsusu which
yatsusu which means “to disguise,”
disguise,” yatsushi is
yatsushi is a
disguised contemporary version of a romantic figure f rom antiquity or classical
literature. It involves the inversion of something refined/noble into something
 vulgar/plebeian. In this story, the yakeato orphan is described as a sort of yatsushi 
of yatsushi 
 version of Jesus Christ.
Christ. Ishikawa Jun discusses
discusses this term—
term—along with mitate,
mitate, haikai ,
honkadori , and other terms related to Edo-period aesthetics—
aesthetics—in his essay “
essay “On the
Thought Patterns of the People of Edo”
Edo” (1943).

Mitate 身立て:
身立て: Mitate is the depiction of one thing through the presentation of 
something else. In traditional waka,
waka, it is associated
associated with a kind of “elegant confusion,”
such as when falling cherry blossoms petals are mistaken for snow. In general, the term
means “selection” and signifies imagery that combines two completely different
subjects, often drawn from high culture and popular culture respectively. In this story,
the yakeato orphan is given an added depth through his mitate link through with
Jesus.
Kiyomizu hall 清水観音堂: Inspired by the magnificent Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, Ueno
Kiyomizu Kannon-dō
Kannon-dō was established by Abbot Tenkai Sō
Sō jō
 jō, who was also the founder
of the Kan’ei
Kan’ei ji
 ji Temple. Built
Built in 1631, the temple
temple is one of Tokyo’
Tokyo’s oldest, and has
miraculously survived battles of civil war and bombing raids. Today, it is recognized as
a national treasure.

Tōshōgū Shrine 東照宮: Built in 1616, the shrine is one of numerous shrines
shrines in Japan
dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo S hogunate. Until 1868, the
shrine was a part of Kan’
Kan’eiji Temple.

(yamiichi  闇市
Ueno black market (yamiichi  闇市):
): A major site of the black markets that flourished
in the immediate postwar period, when goods were hard to come by.

Dazai Shundai 太宰春台 (1680-1747): Neo-Confucian scholar, born in the province of 
Shinano (Nagano prefecture). Entering
Entering the service of the daimyo of Izushi near Hy ōgo,
he studied under Nakano Iken. Later, having left the Izushi estate, he became a disciple
of Ogy ū Sorai. He then entered the service of the daimyo of Ooimi (Shimō
(Shimōsa) but soon
decided to teach. His favorite subject was economics, and he published a number of 
 works on the subject,
subject, the best known of which
which were Keizairoku
were Keizairoku (Discussion of 
Economics, 1729) and
and Keizairokush
 Keizairokushū-i (Discussion
-i (Discussion of Economics, part two). He wrote
more than 50 works. (Louis Frédéric, Japan
Frédéric, Japan Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia,, 150).

Hattori Nankaku 服部南郭 (1683-1759): Confucian scholar, painter, and poet of the
mid-Tokugawa period. Born in Kyoto, he studied the Chinese classics under Ogy ū Sorai,
then opened his own school in 1716. He is best known for his Bunjinga “scholarly 
paintings,” which are in imitation of the Chinese Qing-dynasty style. He helped to
popularize Tang poetry, which had an enormous influence on Edo culture.

Gap (béance) (Term in Lacanian Psychoanalysis): The French term béance is an

antiquated literary term which means a ‘large hole or opening.’
opening.’ It is also a scientific
term used in medicine to denote the opening of the larynx. The term is used in several
 ways in Lacan’s work. In 1946, he speaks of an ‘interrogative gap’ which opens up in
madness, when the subject is perplexed by the phenomena which he experiences
(hallucinations, etc.) (Ec, 165–
165 –6).
In the early 1950s, the term comes to refer to the fundamental
f undamental rupture between
man and NATURE, which is due to the fact that ‘in man, the imaginary relation has
deviated, in so far as that is where the gap is produced whereby death makes itself felt’
(S2, 210). This gap between man and nature is evident in the mirror stage [...] The
function of the imaginary is precisely to fill this gap, thus covering over the subject’
subject’s
division and presenting an imaginary sense of unity and wholeness.
In 1957 the term is used in the context of the relationship between the sexes;
sexes; ‘in
the relation between man and woman…a gap always remains open’ (S4, 374; see S4,
408). This anticipates Lacan’s later remarks on the non-existence
non -existence of the
SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP.
RELATIONSHIP.
In 1964, Lacan argues that ‘the relation of the subject to the Other is entirely 
produced in a process of gap’ (S11, 206), and states that the subject is constituted by a
gap, since the subject is essentially divided (see SPLIT). He also argues that the concept
of causality is essentially problematic
problematic because there is always a mysterious, inexplicable
gap between cause and effect (S11, 21–
21–2).
Lacan also uses the term ‘dehiscence’ in a way that makes it practically 
synonymous, in his discourse, with the term ‘gap’. Dehiscence is a botanical term which
designates the bursting open of mature seed-pods; Lacan uses the term to refer to the
split which is constitutive of the subject: there is ‘a vital dehiscence that is constitutive
of man’ (E, 21). This split is also the division between culture and nature which means
that man’s relation to the latter ‘is altered by a certain dehiscence at the heart of the
organism, a primordial. Discord’ (E, 4) (Evans, 72-73)

Study Questions
 Answer all of the following.
following.
1. Describe the narrative structure of the work. Who is narrating the story? What it his
relation to the world he is describing?

2. Describe the scene at the Ueno yamiichi (black

yamiichi (black market). What phase of human
history do we seem to be in? What is the relation between past, present, and future?
Does the narrator feel that the world has really turned over a “new leaf ”?

3. Describe the woman selling the o-musubi rice

o-musubi rice balls. How does the narrator react to
her? What qualities does she seem to embody?

4. Describe the yakeato orphan who appears in the black market. How do people react
to him? How does the narrator react? What powers does he s eem to possess?
5. Describe the incident that takes place in the market. How does the narrator become
involved?

6. What does the narrator

narrator intend to do when
when he gets to Yanaka?
Yanaka? What is the
significance of this act? Explain his interest in Dazai Shundai, Hattori Nankaku, Edo
period (particularly Tenmei era), Tang dynasty, etc.

7. Describe the appearance of the orphan the next day. Why does he chase down and
attack the narrator? What does this scuffle symbolize?

8. Discuss the connection between the yakeato orphan and Jesus Christ in terms of the
Edo/Ishikawan concepts of yatsushi 
of yatsushi and
and mitate (see definition above).

9. Describe the scene at the market the next morning. Discuss the final passage of the
 work:

Until only yesterday stands had lined the alleys of the

marketplace like a wall. But what about today?
 All that remained along
along either side of the streets were
were the long,
empty rows of stalls constructed of flimsy reed screens. Stretching as far
as the eye could see, they resembled huge stable equipped with countless
 berths and mangers.
mangers. But it was a horseless livery.
livery. Not a horse was
was in
sight.
Peering still farther inside,
inside, one saw an open
op en space. It looked
freshly swept. It was as if someone had taken a stiff broom and given it a
 vigorous sweeping.
sweeping.
Still, the surface was market by a spot here and there. It was as
though something had traipsed across it and left behind its traces. They 
 were the marks of an unidentified being
being that had walked
walked upon the face of 
the earth and left its telltale imprint. As a matter of fact, the traces
looked ever so much like footsteps—
footsteps— yea, even hoofprints
hoofprints—
—that a strange
creature, having wandered
wandered into the desert, left as its tracks in the sand.

10. Gaps, stains, openings, rips, tears, burn marks, traces, holes, etc. form a cluster of 
recurring images in the work. Discuss the significance of these images.