2013 Volume 62 Issue 8 Pages 51-61
The narrator “I” of Kokoro tries in vain to articulate something by the imperfect means of language, always aware of the existence of something extra-linguistic or the “third term.” The third term is symbolized by a void in the story, that is, the absence of the teacher who committed suicide and possessed the narrator to make his disciple repeat his own fate. Thus through the figure of the other in the self, Sōseki Natsume ethically deals with the theme of sin in the “sad age” of fragmented individualism.
