Huckleberry Finn's America : Oe Kenzaburo's Okinawa Nato and Jewish American Intellectuals

Abstract

Oe Kenzaburo's Okinawa Noto (Okinawa Notes, 1970) has a reputation still today as a work which successfully exposed the Japanese people's scornful views of Okinawa under the U.S. Occupation through a self-disclosing narrative. It is known that, in the process of writing, Oe was deeply influenced by Ralph Ellison in the way he depicts racial diversity in his Invisible Man. As a result, Okinawa Notes exhibits Oe's close attention to the issue of diversity even among the Japanese, who are mostly considered to be homogenous. It has been pointed out, however, that Ellison's idea of diversity in no way contradicts the containment policy of the U.S. under the Cold War, and that Ellison and other intellectuals (typically Jewish), called "New York Intellectuals," played an important role in re-constructing the American identity during the Cold War period. In fact, Oe's concept of diversity present in Okinawa Noto was concocted under the direct influence of the New York intellectuals. The narrative style seen in Okinawa Nato, this paper argues, was the product of Oe's intent to give some physical expression of the New York Intellectuals' approach.