AKUTAGAWA RYUNOSUKE'S Ikkai no reputation as soon as it was published in a from Masamune Hakucho, a representative new era of Showa it was highly spoken of outstanding example of a realistic novel. The development of this story is wholly Yasuyoshi Sekiguchi Tsuchi (A Clod of Earth) had a good magazine and drew the highest praise reviewer of the day; and even in the by Kataoka Teppei and others as an devoted to the two poor women who lived in a firm village. Otami was compelled to do heavy labor to make a living of her family and, in the ninth year of her labor, died of typhoid fever. The other heroine Osumi, moved by her daughter-in-law Otami's self-sacrificing labor, would at first voluntarily take care of the house while she was away. But the homework proved to be too much of a load for her, and she began to be afraid of strongminded Otami who did nothing but work in the outside and would be worried by her digs and grumbles at her. Now, this work has been debated and criticized from the point of sight of Otami, one of the leading characters. And the readers used to read the author's mind and find the theme of this work in the fate of Otami who ends her days as a clod of earth. But is this the only point of sight? Should we take on another point of sight of Osumi on the other hand? To be sure, reading this work carefully enough, we shall inevitably admit that the author's eyes Osumi rather than Otami in her distress and wretchedness. life seems to belong to Otami superacially, but in reality Osumi. The suffering of the former is not fully organized are fixed on suffering In this work, the stoic it is the very fate of in the structure of the whole work. On the other hand, it is the latter that bears the burdens of this life and is obliged to lead a stoic life. The author seems to relate by the character of old Osumi the situation in which he was in those days : his weakness as a petit bourgeois compared with the rising proletarian classes. Therefore, I must say that the realistic method of writing is not fully developed in Ikkai no Tsuchi. That he had infused his feelings into old Osumi has set limits to the social perspective of this work and obscured the miserable conditions of rural communities and the problem of the family system which was the fetters to our heroines. The work, which was expected to make an epoch in his career as a writer who was thrown in the transition period of the time, is now seen dyed in the grain with the sense as a man of intellect, which is commonly seen in his earlier works, such as Rashomon (The Main Portal), Hana (The Nose), Imogayu (Rice Gruel with Potato), ect. Thus, the actuality of Ikkai no Tsuchi collapses, and then there crops out the world of a psychological novel, into which converge worries of his life as a writer.

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