Mourning for the War Dead with the “Map” of the Philippines: Issues Surrounding Shōhei Ōoka's Mindoro Island Once Again

Abstract

This essay examines Shōhei Ōoka's Mindoro Island Once Again (1969) and explores the process of including “the Philippines” as an Other while the narrator “I” mourns the loss of his fellow soldiers. Although the first-person narrator is obsessed with revisiting the “Rutay Hills” in Mindoro Island, according to Ōoka's manuscript, “Rutay Hills” is a self-contrived name that does not exist on any maps. The narrative of “I” constructs the perception of space as if drawing a map that overlooks the Philippines, but chance encounters with Filipinos make him realize the difference between their perception of “the Philippines” and his own. The plan for the mourning at the “Rutay Hills” also ends unsuccessfully. “I” stands “here”, which refuses to be defined, resulting in a “mourning” that inevitably recalls the death of Japanese comrades and “the Philippines.”