An Artist of the Floating World (AotFW) Analysis

The story “An artist of the floating world” is a story taking place in Japan after World War ll

when Japan was defeated. Ono, Miyake, and Suichi are the main characters of the novel who are

living in that period of time, and all of them had their own opinions on treating the people who sup-

ported the war. First and foremost, Ono, the narrator of the novel thought they were innocent and

not forced. During the conversation of Ono and Miyake, Miyake told Ono that the president of his

company suicided because he was supporting the war, and after Japan defeated, he felt sorry for the

people who were harmed in the war. Ono was sympathize to him, and he thought that suicide was

too extreme to do, because he thought that it was a waste of life. Ono said that whichever country

start a war, the people of that country will absolutely put all of their effort into the war to help the

country. Unlike Ono, Miyake had a different opinion toward the people who supported the war.

Miyake thought that those people are war criminals, because he thought that those were the people

who lead the country into the wars, and they are the ones who need to pay responsibilities after the

country defeated, and they need to be the ones who suicided in order to apologize the people who

suffered in the war. Last, but not least, Suichi, the son in law of Ono, he had similar opinions with

Miyake. Suichi thought that the people who supported the war were the ones that need to suicided,

because he thought that they are the ones who sent soldiers out to wars while they were relaxing in

the safe place. Suichi’s brother and many of his high school classmates pasted away in the war, and

the ones who sent them were still alive today, which made Suichi hated them so much.

In the World War II, many countries had been involved into it, Japan, as one of the starters

and the defeaters of the war, was mostly impacted. During that period, whoever living in Japan

were all impacted, but the ones that were mostly impacted were the innocent citizens. At the begin-

ning of the world, they put all of their efforts they have into the war in order to help the country,

they also sent their families and relatives to join the war. In the end, when Japan defeated, the coun-

try lost a lot of money, people and powers, which created Great Depression inside the country, citi-
zens lost their jobs and could not even fit themselves, also, they lost many families and relatives in

the war.

In the story “An artist of the floating world”, Ono, Miyake, Suichi all expressed their own,

different opinions which are all makes senses, but I would mostly agree with Ono. Ono thought that

the people who were supported the war are not criminals, because he thought that it is a normal to

see that the people try to do everything they could in order to help the country, and I think that it

makes sense to me. The people who were supported the war were all clever, and bright people, the

time when they noticed that the country is going to start a was, things that they could do was to sup-

port it, because that they may perform better on strategies than joining the war. I think that the peo-

ple who supported the war were innocent too, because that instead of pushing the country into fail-

ure, they were just trying to help the country to win.