After finishing A Pale View of Hills it is apparent that the characters of the narrator’s constructed memory, are personifications or symbols of the multiple facets of the fewer people who actually exist. In many anecdotes it seems that the different characters involved in either Sachiko or Etsuko’s life have mirrored or parallel roles, implying to me that they may have been the same person. There are other instances where the characters seem to function as place holders for certain historical moments or eras in Japan.
The excerpt I’ve chosen to close read is going to pose more questions than answer them since I do not have enough knowledge of Japan’s social or political history, but the scene indicates a fissure between past and present through characters. Chapter Four brings a lot of the defining characteristics of each time-space through the interaction of Ogata-San and Jiro and his coworkers.
“You gentlemen are from Jiro’s firm?” Ogata-San asked.
“Yes, indeed,” the tubby man replied. “A great honour it is too, even if he does give us a tough time. We call your son ‘Pharaoh’ in the office because he urges the rest of us to work like slaves while he does nothing himself.”
“What nonsense,” said my husband.
“It’s true. He orders us around like we’re his dogsbodies. Then he sits down and reads his newspaper.”
Ogata-San seemed a little confused, but seeing the others laugh he joined.”
(Ishiguro 61)
The tubby man’s description of Jiro’s leadership seems to confuse Ogata-San. The man refers to Jiro as Pharaoh. The use of this word draws a connection to ancient empire, but does not culturally correspond to Japan. The man jests that Jiro does not work at all, but orders all of the work to be done by workers ranking lower than him. Jiro does not react as though he is insulted, but with his “what nonsense” seems almost to be dismissing a compliment rather than a criticism. The tubby man continues saying, “He orders us around like we’re his dogsbodies. Then he sits down and reads his newspaper.” This description seems to say that Jiro is rewarded at work not for his strong and impressive capabilities or work ethic, but for his ability to fill a leadership role and give orders. His father is neglected most nights for Jiro to rest to go to work, designate work, and hang out. Yet his coworkers are able to arrive drunk and laugh with him about their own exploitation. I read this as a criticism from Ogata-San’s era of Jiro’s capitalist, americanized work environment, where productivity is rewarded above fairness or ability. The fact that Jiro takes being called essentially a slave-driver as a compliment, and that his friends seem to respect him for it, makes for a confusing moral ground for Ogata San interpret.
P.S. I read these men as showing elements of Capitalism. I’m hoping that is not incorrect. But if it is, I see them as symbolizing the consumer-driven indulgent side of capitalism as well. They show up drunk, over-indulged. One of the men is tubby, possibly implying gluttony. And Etsuko notices that these men have eaten all of her generously portioned cakes, again a greed or consumption.
Hopefully to help clarify the passage, the whole salaryman/capitalist management thing that is Jiro and his workbuddies' occupation is that this sort of thing has been around before WWII; before WWII there is already a kind of pressure to be more westernized ever since Commodore Perry rolled in the harbor in the 1860s to get Japan to open up trade to the United States, and realizing that Japan as a whole was totally behind in terms of preparing for warfare (especially when they saw how much more advanced the United States and Europe was, which was exemplified in European powers dividing and colonizing China right next door), there was a huge push to emulate European powers as a way to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of economic and military development. That includes having their business practices being more capitalistic. America's occupation in Japan is just another way to push it in that direction, but it was already there.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you on the generational conflict between Ogata-san and Jiro and his work buddies. He has to confront the fact that these young whippersnappers are totally not the kind of people he's used to dealing with, which includes weirdo pop culture that came in from the West. But what I wanna add to this is that there is usually a total divide between your work life and your home life. These two identities shouldn't cross because it's a total encroachment of delineated spaces that, if it were to cross like if your private life spills into your work life or your work life into your family life, then it's like totally improper. Too much drama getting added unnecessarily. So these two drunk work buddies wobbling into Jiro and Etsuko's home is really skirting on impropriety. They do it late at night, and while they're there Jiro puts on his work face. And when one guy was eating up all of Etsuko's cakes, it's taken as a sign of someone overreaching their hospitality and almost taking advantage of them.
And one of the biggest change, I think for Ogata-san to see, is that Jiro is being buddy-buddy with his underlings and they don't show the right kind of attitude to their superior, which is by taking advantage of his hospitality. And it's compounded by, like you said, Ogata-san really wanting to spend time with his son but he's pretty much a workaholic while being under a lot of stress in the capitalist machine. What might be another generational gap (and it's based on my assumptions, so I can't source it clearly) is that usually it's the superior who initiates the buddy-buddy thing with their subordinates and not the other way around. Now it could be that all three of them are close enough friends that it transcends the usual work place dynamics, but this might also add to Ogata-san's bewilderment, as well as Etsuko's.