Momotaro as Proletarian: A Study of Revolutionary Symbolism in Japan

Abstract

This article discusses the ideological working of Momotaro, a popular Japanese folktale in which an imaginary hero liberates his people from evil demons in a distant land. During the 1930s and 1940s, this folktale was used by the imperial authorities to justify the war against “demonic Anglo-Americans.” Little known is that the same story was also appropriated by Japanese orator-communists challenging imperialism and war capitalism. The article critically examines how the folk hero acquired “class consciousness” and became proletarian, critiquing the dominant ideology.

Keywords:

• Folklore
• Japanese Rhetoric
• Marxism
• Proletarian Literature
• Rhetorical Subversion

Notes

[1] Kenneth Burke, “Revolutionary Symbolism in America. Speech by Kenneth Burke to American Writers' Congress, April 26, 1935,” in The Legacy of Kenneth Burke, ed. Herbert W. Simons and Trevor Melia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 10.

[2] Famous Revolutionary Quotations, http://irishredstar.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/famous-revolutionary-quotations/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

[3] Robert Glenn Howard, “A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the ‘Sinner's Prayer,’” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_2_116/ai_n15727506/?tag=content;col1 (accessed August 30, 2013).

[4] William R. Bascom, “Folklore and Anthropology,” Journal of American Folklore 66 (1953): 283–90; Richard M. Dorson, “Folklore and the National Defense Education Act,” Journal of American Folklore 75 (1962): 160–64; Dana Prescott Howell, The Development of Soviet Folkloristics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992).

[5] Matthias Eder, “Reality in Japanese Folktales,” Asian Ethnography 28 (1969): 19. Also see Robert J. Adams, “Folktale Telling and Storytellers in Japan,” Asian Ethnography 30 (1967): 99–118.

[6] John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).

[7] Klaus Antoni, “Momotaro (The Peach Boy) and the Sprit of Japan: Concerning the Function of a Fairly Tale in Japanese Nationalism of the Early Showa Age,” Asian Folklore Studies 50 (1991): 155–88.

[8] This article is inspired by and indebted to Shin Torigoe who collected and reviewed a variety of Momotaro stories that existed in modern Japanese history. See his Momotaro No Unmei (Tokyo: NHK Books, 1983).

[9] For Yanagita's contribution to political theory, see, for instance, Kazuko Tsurumi, “Yanagita Kunio's Work as a Model of Endogenous Development,” Japan Quarterly 22 (1975): 224–7.

[10] The term is adapted from Ronald Walter Greene, “Orator Communist,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 39 (2006): 85–95; and James Arnt Aune, Rhetoric & Marxism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 15–43.

[11] Robert James Branham, “Debate and Dissident in Late Tokugawa and Meiji Japan,” Argumentation and Advocacy 30 (1994): 131–49; Miyori Nakazawa, “A Rhetorical Analysis of the Japanese Student Movement: University of Tokyo Struggle 1968–69” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1989).

[12] Hiroko Okuda, “Murayama's Political Challenge to Japan's Public Apology,” International & Intercultural Communication Annual 28 (2005): 14–42; Toshiyuki Sakuragi, “Doi Takako: A Japanese Player of the Western Game of Dialogue—Doi's Speech of September 17, 1987,” Howard Journal of Communication 4 (1992): 105–17.

[13] Roichi Okabe, “Yukichi Fukuzawa: A Promulgator of Western Rhetoric in Japan,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 59 (1973): 188–95.

[14] Takeshi Suzuki and Frans H. van Eemeren, “‘This Painful Chapter’: An Analysis of Emperor Akihito's Apologia in the Context of Dutch Old Sores,” Argumentation and Advocacy 41 (2000): 102–11.

[15] Satoshi Ishii, “Buddhist Preaching: The Persistent Main Undercurrent of Japanese Traditional Rhetorical Communication,” Communication Quarterly 40 (1992): 391–97.

[16] Yuko Kawai, “Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Intercultural Communication: A Critical Analysis of Japan's Neoliberal Nationalism Discourse under Globalization,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 2 (2009): 16–43.

[17] Patricia Steinhoff, “Protest and Democracy,” in Democracy in Japan, ed. Takeshi Ishida and Ellis E. Krauss (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), 172; Also see David E. Apter and Nagayo Sawa, Against the State: Politics and Social Protest in Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984); Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff, eds., Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984).

[18] Rikki Kersten and David Williams, eds., The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy: Essays in Honor of J. A. A. Stockwin (London: Rutledge, 2006); George R. Packard, III, Protest in Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966).

[19] John L. Morrison, ”The Absence of a Rhetorical Tradition in Japanese Culture,” Western Speech 36 (1976): 89–102.

[20] See, for example, Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites, Crafting Equality: America's Anglo African World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Michael Calvin McGee, “The Origin of ‘Liberty’: A Feminization of Power,” Communication Monographs 47 (1980): 23–45; Michael C. Leff and Fred J. Kauffeld, eds., Texts in Context: Critical Dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Political Rhetoric (New York: Routledge, 1995).

[21] Aune, Rhetoric & Marxism; Lee Artz, Steve Macek, and Dana L. Cloud, eds., Marxism and Communication Studies: The Point is to Change it (New York: Peter Lang, 2006); Dana L. Cloud, “Fighting Words: Labor and the Limits of Communication at Staley, 1993 to 1996,” Management Communication Quarterly 18 (2005): 509–42; Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin or Toward a Revolutionary Criticism (London: Verso, 1981); Ronald Walter Greene, “Another Materialist Rhetoric,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 15 (1998): 21–41; Greene, “Orator Communist”; Richard W. Wilkie, “Karl Marx on Rhetoric,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 9 (1976): 232–46.

[22] Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 80.

[23] Michael Calvin McGee, “The ‘Ideograph’: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 66 (1980): 14.

[24] James Arnt Aune, “Culture of Discourse: Marxism and Rhetorical Theory,” in Argumentation Theory and the Rhetoric of Assent, ed. David Cratis Williams and Michael David Hazen (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990), 165. Also see Dana L. Cloud, “The Rhetoric of <Family Values>: Scapegoating, Utopia, and the Privatization of Social Responsibility,” Western Journal of Communication 62 (1997): 387–419.

[25] V. N. Volosinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Ladislave Matejka and I. R. Titunik (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 23.

[26] Unless otherwise specified, the historical synopsis of Japanese Marxism and the Proletarian Literature Movement given in this article is based on the following: Hirotaka Koyama, Nihon Marukusushugi Shi (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1956); Ken Hirano, Showa Bungaku Shi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1963); Yukio Kurihara, Proletaria Bungaku To Sono Jidai (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1971); Hiroaki Matsuzawa, Nihon Marukusushugi No Shiso (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1973); Kazuo Nimura, “The Formation of Japanese Labor Movement: 1868–1914,” in The Formation of Labour Movements 1870–1914: An International Perspective, Vol. II, ed. M. van der Linden and J. Rojahn (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), rpt., http://oohara.mt.tama.hosei.ac.jp/nk/English/eg-formation.html (accessed October 30, 2013); Hideo Odagiri, Shakaibungaku Shakaishugibungaku Kenkyu (Tokyo: Seisou Shobo, 1990).

[27] Evelyn S. Colbert, The Left Wing in Japanese Politics (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1952), 7.

[28] Evelyn S. Colbert, The Left Wing in Japanese Politics (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1952), 7.

[29] Kazuo Ohkouchi, Koutoku Shusui To Katayama Sen: Meiji No Shakai Shugi (Tokyo: Koudansha, 1972).

[30] Kazuo Ohkouchi, Koutoku Shusui To Katayama Sen: Meiji No Shakai Shugi (Tokyo: Koudansha, 1972), 172–79.

[31] Akito Yamauchi, “The Early Comitern in Amsterdam, New York, and Mexico City,” The Journal of History (Kyushu University) 147 (2010): 111–12.

[32] Hyman Kublin, “The Origin of Japanese Socialist Tradition,” The Journal of Politics 14 (1952): 269.

[33] Miriam Silverberg, Changing Song: The Marxist Manifestos of Nakano Shigeharu (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 47–48.

[34] Quoted in Christopher Goto-Jones, “The Left Hand of Darkness: Forging a Political Left in Interwar Japan,” in The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2006), 5.

[35] Quoted in Christopher Goto-Jones, “The Left Hand of Darkness: Forging a Political Left in Interwar Japan,” in The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2006), 5.

[36] Vladimir I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/download/what-itd.pdf (accessed August 30, 2013), 34.

[37] Asao Yuichi, Proletaria Bungaku Undo: Sono Riso to Genjitsu (Tokyo: Banseisha, 1991), 10.

[38] Hilary Chung and Tommy McClellan, “The ‘Command Enjoyment’ of Literature in China: Conferences, Controls, and Excesses,” in In Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and China, vol. 6 of Critical Studies, ed. Hilary Chung (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 3.

[39] Quoted in Yuichi, Proletaria Bungaku, 10.

[40] Martin Dewherst, “Socialist Realism and Soviet Censorship System,” in In Party Spirit: Socialist Realism and Literary Practice in the Soviet Union, East Germany and China, vol. 6 of Critical Studies, ed. Hilary Chung (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 24.

[41] Jerry Phillips, “Marxism and Utopia Socialism,” http://www.english.ilstu.edu/Strickland/495/utopia.html (accessed August 30, 2013).

[42] Burke, “Revolutionary Symbolism”; Also see Frank Lentricchia, Criticism and Social Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 28–29.

[43] Torigoe, Momotaro, 94.

[44] For a picture book currently available in English, see Momoe Saito and Ralf F. McCarthy, The Adventure of Momotaro, the Peach Boy, bilingual ed. (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1996). For Momotaro comics (in Japanese), see Makoto Niwano, Za Momotaro, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Homusha, 2004).

[45] “Reading Japanese Folklore in English: Momoraro (The Peace Boy),” Karashidane's Blog, March 14, 2011, http://blog.livedoor.jp/karashidane/archives/50832281.html (accessed November 30, 2013).

[46] Regarding the relationship between child innocentism and Marxism, see, for example, Takashi Kumagai, Bungaku kyouiku (Tokyo: Kokudosha, 1956), esp. Chapter 1.

[47] Kiyoshi Eguchi, “Aruhi No Onigashima, Jou,” Akaitori (October 1927): 48–53; “Aruhi No Onigashima, Ge,” Akaitori (November 1927): 40–47.

[48] Eguchi, “Jou,” 51.

[49] Eguchi, “Ge,” 47.

[50] Eguchi, “Ge,” 47.

[51] Terry Eagleton, Figures of Dissent: Critical Essays on Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others (London: Verso, 2005), 87–88.

[52] McGee, “Ideograph.”

[53] Vladimir I. Lenin, “Preface,” in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/pref01.htm (accessed August 30, 2013).

[54] Alvin W. Gouldner, The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 31 (my italics).

[55] Mutsuo Honjo, “Oniseibatsu No Momotaro,” Shonen Senki (May 1931): 8–9.

[56] Mutsuo Honjo, “Oniseibatsu No Momotaro,” Shonen Senki (May 1931): 8.

[57] Typical of works published in this period, a word or two are made “blank” in a copy of the original print obtained from the National Diet Library.

[58] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[59] These correspond to three animals, i.e., a monkey, a dog, and a pheasant, that supported Momotaro in the standard version. In Japanese, saru refers to monkey, inu dog, and kiji pheasant.

[60] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[61] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[62] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[63] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[64] Takiji Kobayashi was one of the most prominent and active members of the Proletariat Literature Movement. He was arrested and tortured to death by the authorities in 1932.

[65] Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, 19.

[66] Honjo, “Oniseibatsu,” 9.

[67] For a comprehensive discussion on the issue of war-time ideological conversion, see Shugo Honda, Tenko Bungaku Ron, 3rd ed. (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1985).

[68] McGee, “Ideograph,” 13.

[69] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings, ed. David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, trans. William Boelhower (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 189.

[70] Lentricchia, Criticism, 37. For a more contemporary rhetorical (re)appropriation of Gramsci, see Joseph P. Zompetti, “Toward a Gramscian Critical Rhetoric,” Western Journal of Communication 61 (1997): 66–86.

[71] Gaikotsu, Meiji Enzetsu Shi (Tokyo: Seikokan Shoten, 1929), front cover.

[72] Eizo Kondo, Proletaria Yubengaku (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1930).

[73] Kiyoshi Miki, “Kaishakugaku To Shujigaku,” in Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu 5 Kan (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1967 [original published in 1937]), 139–58. For contemporary studies of Miki's rhetorical theory, see Mitsuhiro Hashimoto, “Miki Kiyoshi No Rhetoric To Communication,” Hikaku Bunka Kenkyu 49 (2000): 61–68; Hideki Kakita, “Rhetorical Resistance in Wartime Japan: Kiyoshi Miki's Critical Praxis” (PhD diss, University of Iowa, 2003).

[74] Kimihiko Ohtsuru, “Demo Ni Koso Honshitsu Ga Aru,” Ohtsuru Kimihiko No Blog, July 27, 2008, http://ootsuru.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/cat20507669/index.html (accessed August 30, 2013).

[75] Robert T. Oliver, Culture and Communication: The Problem of Penetrating National and Cultural Boundaries (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1962), 155 (italics in original).

[76] Yamauchi, “The Early Comintern,” 112.