In this blog post, we’ll examine how his literary themes—sense of guilt, humor, and destruction—are embodied in his works by exploring Osamu Dazai’s upbringing and key events in his life.
Osamu Dazai’s Life and Upbringing
In June 1948, three years after Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, Osamu Dazai ended his 39-year life by drowning himself in the Tama River reservoir alongside Tomie Yamazaki. The news sent shockwaves through the Japanese literary world, and amid the chaotic social atmosphere following the war, a “Dazai craze” spread like an epidemic, garnering frenzied popularity, particularly among the younger generation.
Although that craze has subsided somewhat today, the appeal of Dazai’s literature continues to captivate many readers. Therefore, we cannot help but ask what the distinctive qualities and source of appeal in Dazai’s literature are.
Depending on their nature, some literary works can be read without any knowledge of the author’s background, while others are difficult to fully understand without knowing the author’s life. For works of a confessional nature or those resembling personal memoirs, the author’s life serves as a particularly important clue to understanding the work.
In Dazai’s case, his upbringing and life experiences are key to understanding his literature. Only when we understand where the keywords of Dazai’s literature—“guilt,” “humor,” and “ruin”—originate and empathize with them can we truly appreciate their appeal. In particular, since most of his works draw directly from his upbringing, it is necessary to understand the author before reading his works.
Dazai was born in Kitatsugaru, Aomori Prefecture, in northeastern Japan, and his real name was Shuji Tsushima. His father was a major landowner in the region and a member of the House of Peers (the upper house of the Diet). Although he was the tenth child among seven sons and four daughters, his older siblings died young, so he actually grew up as the youngest of eight siblings and was raised by a nanny.
As his father resided in Tokyo while serving as a member of the House of Peers, his mother also spent much of her time there, and Dazai lived without knowing his mother existed until the second or third grade of elementary school. Moreover, his mother was particularly cold toward Dazai compared to his siblings, and he grew up with a constant sense of inferiority toward them, raised by his nanny without parental love.
As a boy, Dazai was known as a prankster both at home and at school, but during his high school years, he published “Infinite Abyss” in a magazine, exposing his father’s dissolute lifestyle and hypocrisy. In 1929, during his third year of high school, he took a large dose of sleeping pills in what was his first suicide attempt. Although his motives remain unclear since he never specified them, it is said that he was either deeply shocked by the suicide of Ryunosuke Akutagawa two years earlier or that he simply fell into a temporary coma due to an overdose.
In 1930, Dazai enrolled in the Department of French Literature at the University of Tokyo, where he met Masuji Ibuse and formed a mentor-protégé relationship with him; however, in terms of literary style, he ultimately took a path fundamentally different from Ibuse’s influence. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Ibuse’s guidance laid the foundation for Dazai’s growth as a writer.
That same year, he began a relationship with Hatsuyo Oyama, a former geisha. After various twists and turns, their relationship was accepted, but as a result, Dazai was expelled from his family’s household registry in his hometown. Since it was common at the time for people to remain in their family’s household registry even after marriage, this punishment came as a great shock to Dazai.
Another factor behind his expulsion from the household registry was his involvement in left-wing activism. While studying French literature at the University of Tokyo, he joined the left-wing movement at the urging of Eizo Kudo and expressed a critical perspective on the exploiting class and state power in works such as ‘The Landlord’s Generation’ and ‘The Student Army’. In 1931, the year after Kudo was arrested, Dazai turned himself in; thereafter, he was plagued by guilt over having distanced himself from the underground movement.
Shortly after being expelled from his family’s household registry, Dazai attempted suicide by jumping off a cliff on Eno Island in Kanagawa Prefecture with a hostess from a Ginza café; however, the woman died while Dazai survived and was admitted to a hospital in Kamakura. Dazai himself referred to this incident in various works.
As a result of this incident, Dazai received a suspended indictment on charges of aiding suicide, and this experience left him with a deep sense of guilt for the rest of his life. After being discharged from the hospital, Dazai lost hope in life and sank into a decadent existence as a failure; when it became clear he would not be able to finish college, he took the entrance exam for the Miyako Shimbun but failed.
In 1935, he attempted suicide alone in the mountains of Kamakura but failed. The essay “Man’nen” (“Eternity”), which he wrote in place of a suicide note, unexpectedly drew the attention of the literary world and paved the way for his career as a writer. However, he later fell into despair again due to drug addiction and the frustration of failing to win the Akutagawa Prize.
In 1936, while hospitalized for treatment of his drug addiction, Dazai learned that Hatsuyo had been having an affair. The following year, the two attempted a double suicide at Minakami Hot Springs, but once again, the attempt failed. After parting ways with Hatsuyo, he lived alone at the foot of Mount Fuji and regained his peace of mind.
After marrying Michiko in 1939, Dazai settled into a relatively stable life and continued to write prolifically while leading a modest existence until Japan’s defeat in 1945. His life at the foot of Mount Fuji is documented in ‘One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji’.
In the approximately three years following the war’s end, leading up to his final suicide by jumping, Dazai attained the status of a so-called “trendy writer”—a rogue-style author suited to a society that had lost its ethical foundation in the wake of defeat. I will discuss ‘Sayonara’ and ‘No Longer Human’, written during his final years, in detail later along with analyses of the works; however, against the historical backdrop of the end of the modern era and the dismantling of the illusion of the modern self, Dazai’s literary career can be described as a struggle to dismantle the established order through an excess of self-consciousness and self-destruction.
Dazai’s literary career can be broadly divided into three periods: the first period, marked by a bleak existence characterized by attempted suicide and drug addiction; the second period, during which he enjoyed relative stability through marriage despite the war; and the third period, in which he spiraled toward ruin amid the desolate society following Japan’s defeat. ‘Sayonara’ and ‘No Longer Human’ belong to this third period; they showcase the true essence of decadent literature and are founded on the themes of the “beauty of decadence” and the “beauty of ruin.”
The Characteristics of ‘Sayō’ and Third-Phase Works
‘Sayō’ was serialized in four installments in ‘Shinjo’ beginning in July 1947 and received considerable acclaim from the moment of its publication. When it was published as a standalone book by Shinjo-sha in December of the same year, it immediately became a bestseller, and the buzzword “Sayō-zoku” even emerged among the public.
Set against the revolutionary atmosphere immediately following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the novel begins as the story of a mother and daughter of aristocratic descent living in a mountain villa in Izu, and in the latter half, it unfolds into a unique love story between Uehara—a married novelist—and Kazuko, a divorced woman who is willing to bear his child.
The main characters include the mother—referred to as “the last aristocrat”—“I” (Kazuko), her younger brother Naoji, and the novelist Uehara, who serves as her literary mentor. Among them, the mother dies of tuberculosis, Naoji commits suicide, and Uehara descends into a life of hedonistic debauchery. Only Kazuko is portrayed as a character who defies traditional moral conventions and seeks to spark her own “moral revolution.”
Some critics, however, rate the work somewhat lowly, regardless of its fame. They point out that the atmosphere of the first half and the second half of the work differ drastically, giving an impression of imbalance, and that the character portrayals generally feel unnatural.
The core of this view is the assessment that, compared to the excessive sentimentalism of the first half, the scene in the second half where Kazuko shouts “Let the battle begin!” feels out of balance. However, a work’s artistic merit does not necessarily correlate with its appeal or literary value.
What matters is discovering what the work seeks to convey to the reader and what its true appeal is. ‘Sayō’ possesses a charm that cannot be reduced solely to the yardstick of artistic perfection, and within it, one can discern the historical awareness and personal anguish that Dazai sought to convey.
‘Sayō’ is a work based on the so-called “Sayō Diary,” which he borrowed from his then-girlfriend, Shizuko Ota. Shizuko Ota was the daughter of a doctor in Shiga Prefecture; after graduating from high school in her hometown, she dropped out of the Home Economics Department at Jitsusen Women’s Junior College in Tokyo. She married and gave birth to a child shortly after her father’s death in 1938, but due to marital discord, she divorced after the child died and moved to Tokyo to live with her mother in 1940. Driven by a sense of guilt toward her deceased child, Shizuko recorded her innermost thoughts in diary form.
This is the “Diary of a Declining Woman.”
Shizuko, who had loved literature since her girlhood, was captivated by Dazai’s works and sent him a letter; this became the catalyst for their relationship. They first spent time alone together in 1943, when Dazai visited Shizuko while she was evacuated to Sogamura, Kanagawa Prefecture; however, it is believed that they became physically intimate in February 1947, when the two spent a week together in Shimosoga. At that time, Dazai borrowed Shizuko’s diary, and by early March, Chapters 1 and 2 of ‘Sayō’ were already complete. When he met Shizuko again in mid-March, Dazai learned that she was pregnant and was struggling with the issue of the unborn child; by this point, ‘Sayō’ was already about halfway complete.
When he began writing ‘Sayō’ after borrowing Shizuko’s diary, Dazai had modeled the heroine, Kazuko, after Shizuko and had planned for her to die in the latter part of the novel. However, Shizuko’s pregnancy caused the situation to change dramatically. Since the heroine could not be allowed to die alongside her lover if she were expecting a child, Dazai had to present a new source of strength and a way for her to persevere and live on for the sake of the child. This is most clearly evident in the opening of Chapter 6, where the line, “The battle begins. I cannot remain immersed in grief forever. There is something I must win at all costs,” serves as a prime example.
However, Shizuko’s pregnancy actually drove the two of them apart. Dazai began avoiding Shizuko, and around that time, he had started seeing Tomie Yamazaki. Tomie, who was thirty at the time, was a war widow working as a hairdresser at a salon in Mitaka; her devoted love captured Dazai’s heart, and their relationship quickly developed into one virtually indistinguishable from that of a married couple. Thus, ‘Refusal’ is a work written amidst his relationships with two women—Shizuko Ota and Tomie Yamazaki—and his interactions with them influenced the work both directly and indirectly.
In addition to Ota Shizuko’s ‘Sayō Diary’, Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’ can also be cited as a source of inspiration for ‘Sayō’. It is said that when Dazai decided to serialize the novel in a magazine, he explained his concept to the editor, saying, “I will write a masterpiece. I will write a great masterpiece. I intend to write Japan’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’. It is a tragedy of a declining class. I’ve even decided on the title. ‘Sayō’. The setting sun. ‘Sayō’.” It is said that he explained his vision for the work in this way.
‘The Cherry Orchard’ is a play that contrasts the old generation with the new forces through the character of a noblewoman who, unable to comprehend the rapidly changing reality, remains immersed in the dreams of her glorious past, while also seeking new hope through her daughter, who abandons her former way of life to move toward a new one. Dazai was deeply moved by ‘The Cherry Blossom Grove’ around 1945, and after reading Shizuko Ota’s ‘The Diary of Sayō’, he began to seriously conceptualize ‘Sayō’.
‘Sayō’ is written in the form of a confessional memoir through the voice of a woman named Kazuko. Dazai had previously written numerous works featuring female narrators, such as ‘The Schoolgirl’, ‘Skin and Heart’, ‘The Cricket’, ‘December 8’, and ‘Waiting’. These works were made possible by Dazai’s deep understanding of the female psyche; in particular, ‘The Schoolgirl’ and ‘Skin and Heart’, which drew on the diaries of others, served as the foundation for the completion of ‘Sayonara’.
However, the true charm of ‘Sayonara’ lies in the fact that the main characters—namely, the mother, Kazuko, Naoji, and Uehara—are all alter egos of the author, Dazai himself. The mother, the “last aristocrat” who dies while clinging to a pure life; Kazuko, who cries out for love and revolution while pursuing a new life; Naoji, who groans in frustration before committing suicide; and Uehara, who continues a decadent lifestyle while surrendering to reality. These characters embody Dazai’s dreams, hopes, frustrations, and reality in personified form. This is why, despite the somewhat unnatural character portrayals, ‘Sayonara’ resonates with so many readers.
Furthermore, ‘Sayonara’ is a work whose true charm can only be fully appreciated when read with these complex backgrounds and elements in mind.
Compared to ‘Sayō’, which was completed amid a tangled web of circumstances, ‘No Longer Human’, written based on his own career experiences, can be said to have been completed relatively smoothly. Although Dazai began conceiving ‘No Longer Human’ around 1936—ten years prior—it is difficult to completely shake the impression that, contrary to his ambition to “leave behind a masterpiece before turning forty,” the work ultimately remained modest in scope. This is because, at the time of writing ‘Sayō’, Dazai was already in the worst possible state, both physically and mentally, and he had to write ‘No Longer Human’ without ever having recovered from that condition.
It was on March 7, 1948, that Dazai headed to the “Kiun-kaku” inn in Atami to write ‘No Longer Human’. There, he cut off all contact with the outside world—except for Tomie Yamazaki—and devoted himself entirely to writing. During his approximately 20-day stay, he completed the draft of the “Second Memoir” before returning to Tokyo, where he finished dictating the notes for ‘Thus Have I Heard’, the ‘Selected Works of Masuji Ibuse’, and the “Afterword,” and then began writing the “Third Memoir” at Tomie’s home.
At the time, Dazai’s lung disease had worsened, and his health was extremely poor; however, due to various pressing circumstances, he had to rush to write works in order to receive manuscript fees. These pressing circumstances included not only caring for his family but also his son’s upbringing, excessive drinking expenses, and child support for the daughter he had with Shizuko Ota. Furthermore, in late February—just before he left for Atami to write ‘No Longer Human’—Dazai was greatly distressed to receive a tax notice from the Musashino Tax Office demanding 117,000 yen in taxes on his previous year’s income of 210,000 yen. According to his wife’s testimony, Dazai wept as he stared at the notice. Ultimately, in a state of extreme physical and mental exhaustion, he was forced to rush to write a work to earn money.
After finishing the first half of “The Third Memoir” at Tomie’s home for the second installment of the ‘No Longer Human’ serialization, Dazai—through the arrangements of Mr. Yoshida, the president of Chikuma Shobo—stayed in Omiya City with Tomie starting on April 29. There, he began writing the second half of “The Third Memoir” for the third installment of the serialization, completing it on May 9. He wrote an additional “Afterword” to complete ‘No Longer Human’ on May 11. It is reported that while in Omiya, he shut himself away to devote himself entirely to completing the work, and thanks to a nutritious diet and a regular routine, he recovered his health considerably.
The first installment of ‘No Longer Human’ was published in the June 1948 issue of the magazine; the second installment, released the month after Dazai’s suicide, appeared in the July issue; and the third installment appeared in the August issue. The first installment included the “Second Memoir” and earlier; the second installment included the “Third Memoir (1)” and earlier; and the third installment contained the remainder. Therefore, ‘No Longer Human’ is structured in the following order: “Preface,” “First Memoir,” “Second Memoir,” “Third Memoir (1) (2),” and “Afterword.”
‘No Longer Human’ follows a structure in which, in the “Preface,” the narrator “I” provides a description of three photographs of a man named Oba Yōzō and introduces the three diaries he left behind; then, in the “Afterword,” “I” once again reveals the source of those diaries.
In particular, the descriptions of the three photographs introduced in the “Preface” serve as a kind of premise for the three essays that follow. The three photographs in question are: one taken when he was around ten years old, surrounded by numerous women; one taken when he was around twenty; and one where his age is unclear. The narrator’s impressions of these photographs can be summarized as follows.
The Dual Structure of the Three Photographs and the Work
The three photographs that readers first encounter each evoke a strong sense of discomfort or artificiality. The first photograph gives the impression of a “disgracefully grinning face,” a “face like a grinning monkey,” and an “expression that is somehow unclean and repulsive to others.”
The second photograph evokes descriptions such as “a student of considerable beauty, yet lacking the sense of being a living human,” “a smile that seems somehow different from a human smile,” and “a feeling that everything about it is fake from start to finish.”
The third photo triggers reactions such as “it’s impossible to tell her age at all,” “an ominous aura as if she were sitting there dead,” “an expressionless and featureless face,” and “a creepy and unpleasant feeling.”
Armed with these preconceptions about the photos, readers begin to engage with the memoir in earnest. The way the author, Yozō, the reader, and the “I” who introduces the memoir are brought into the narrative introduces a dual structure to the work. This device appears to have the advantage of allowing the author to make far more candid confessions while feeling relatively less pressure.
As a result, the relationship between Yozō and “I” is presented to the reader as one in which they seem to be the same human beings yet are separated by a strange veil.
Three Essays—From the First to the Third
The first essay is woven around various episodes that took place at her family home and elementary school. It begins with the shocking statement, “I have lived a life of utter shame,” a line that can be read not only as the introduction to the first essay but also as the introduction to the entire work.
Through accounts of her various failures, Yōjo explains that she is, at her core, a person ill-suited to an ideal life. Nevertheless, in a desperate attempt to fit in with others, she resorts to humor, eventually coming to view herself as “I am nothing, I am the wind, I am the sky.”
Yōjo’s reverence for her father is extraordinary. The memoir includes a scene where, on a trip to Tokyo, her father asks the children what kind of gift they would like. Yōzō is unable to give an answer that pleases her father and, thinking, “I have incurred my father’s wrath. His revenge will surely be immense,” trembles so much that she cannot sleep.
It is interpreted that this intense fear of her father stems from a lack of her mother’s love. Throughout the memoir, her mother’s presence is scarcely revealed. The only mention of her is an episode in which Yōzō accidentally urinated in his pants while riding a train with his mother.
In the third memoir, Yōzō confesses his feelings upon hearing the news of his father’s death. Upon learning of his father’s passing, he confesses, “I have finally become a spineless person,” adding, “Father is gone. That longed-for and terrifying presence, which never left my heart for a single moment, has already vanished.”
Rather than expressing grief over his father’s death, Yōzō gives the impression that he has finally realized the true nature of the presence that had been suppressing him all along. This can be interpreted as his awareness of the cause of his “fear of others,” as Dazai himself had analyzed.
The second essay unfolds against the backdrop of a foreign land. With the confession, “For me, having gone to a so-called foreign land for the first time in my life, that foreign land seemed like a far more comfortable place than the hometown where I was born,” he comes to realize anew how uncomfortable his life back home had been.
However, the comfort of this foreign land is shattered by Takekazu, a “student bordering on idiocy,” and Yōzō finds himself in a situation where he must experience the world firsthand. Instead of resorting to humor, he attempts to quell his fears through alcohol, cigarettes, prostitutes, and illegal activities, but ultimately attempts suicide by jumping into the sea off the coast of Kamakura with a hostess from Ginza.
By the third diary entry, Yōzō begins to harbor the thought, “Isn’t the world just the individual?” and shows a willingness to navigate life on his own terms more than before. Through an introduction by Shizuko, a divorced woman he met by chance and began living with, he even draws manga for a magazine; however, fearing he might jeopardize the happiness of Shizuko and her daughter, he leaves her and moves in with the madam of a stand-up bar.
While living with the madam, he meets Yoshiko, the daughter of a tobacco shop owner, and marries her; however, shortly thereafter, he witnesses Yoshiko’s infidelity, becomes despondent, and attempts suicide by poisoning once again. Subsequently, his tuberculosis worsens due to heavy drinking and a life of debauchery, and he falls into a morphine addiction, leading to his admission to a psychiatric hospital; he ultimately spends the remainder of his life as a “disqualified human being.” He was only twenty-seven years old.
Since these three memoirs largely coincide with author Dazai’s career, it is reasonable to interpret them as raw, autobiographical confessions. However, it is also necessary to pay attention to the presence of the “I” who appears in the preface and afterword.
The “I” who, in the preface, introduces three photographs as if cursing them, appears in the afterword as a responsible family man buying seafood for his family. If this “I” is also an alter ego of the author, then Yōzō, who appears in the diary entries, may be a character designed to deceive readers through Dazai’s characteristic acting.
In other words, one must read ‘No Longer Human’ with an awareness of the work’s structure—which presents Yōzō, a man of excessive sensitivity, to the reader through the lens of the wholesome “I”—and the trick hidden within it.
Dazai’s Final Years, Critical Reception, and Demise
After completing ‘No Longer Human’ and returning to Mitaka, Tokyo, Dazai showed great enthusiasm for the novel ‘Goodbye’, which was scheduled to begin serialization in the ‘Asahi Shimbun’ in late June. However, his relationship with his live-in partner, Tomie, began to torment him once again.
People close to him at the time testified that Dazai wanted to end his relationship with Tomie. However, fearing that she might commit suicide alone if they parted ways, he was unable to end the relationship, and ultimately, the two jumped together into the Tama River reservoir.
Dazai’s active career as a full-fledged writer spanned approximately 15 years, from 1933 to 1948. This period was a time of upheaval marked by the suppression of left-wing movements, press censorship, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, Japan’s defeat, and the Allied occupation. Consequently, Dazai found himself in a unique historical context as a writer, and as a result, his works inevitably reflected the particularities and narrow-mindedness of the era.
Nevertheless, Dazai’s works transcend time and space, resonating with many readers today. On the other hand, there were also numerous voices that criticized and rejected Dazai’s literature. One of his most prominent critics during his lifetime was Shiga Naoya, who reigned as the “God of Novels” at the time.
Although Dazai took a critical stance toward Shiga’s literature, during a roundtable discussion in 1948, Shiga harshly criticized Dazai, saying, “Young people may like him, but I don’t. I don’t like his lack of seriousness.” He also criticized Dazai’s writing style at another roundtable discussion that same year.
Dazai’s end was tragic. As his lung disease worsened—to the point where he was coughing up blood and could barely climb stairs—he committed suicide on the night of June 13, 1948 (or in the early morning of the 14th) by jumping into the Tama River reservoir with his live-in partner, Tomie Yamazaki. Their bodies were found five days later, on the morning of the 19th, in a state of advanced decomposition; that day marked Dazai’s thirty-ninth birthday.
Dazai’s life and literature—in which he sought salvation amid ruin only to ultimately take his own life—were not protected by those who empathized with him but were instead subjected to attacks from fierce critics like Mishima. However, this very aspect can also be understood as a distinctive trait and charm of Dazai’s literature.
