부산대학교 도서관

『A Personal Matter』 was written by Oe Kenzaburo in 1963, being inspired by birth of his son with cerebral hernia. The main character of this novel, Bird makes a decision to raise a baby after the anguish and inner conflict, resisting the temptation of his girlfriend to leave for utopia together. This paper considered the meaning of acceptance on the assumption that this choice of Bird contains some message which the author wanted to expose. To begin with, this study assumed that 'an alumnus of the university', 'Gikuhiko' and 'Delchev' had the biggest impacts on Bird's decision to accept the baby and then, analyzed the image of acceptance, since these three characters gave true advices or examples about legitimate life to Bird without faltering in making decisions about their lives. According to the results of consideration, meeting the three characters made him realize his errors and accept the baby. In other words, he began to lead a legitimate life, by accepting the baby. When 'Bird' decided to raise the baby, although he was highly dependent upon other people for deciding his career and was weak to the sudden misfortune, it shows his strong will to go head to head with the environment given to him. Besides, that choice means that he realized 'sincere acceptance' of himself along with 'acceptance of the baby'. Based on the cases of Bird that was mentally grown up, Oe told that a 'legitimate life' is to live with 'hope' and 'patience' without avoiding personal problems. Moreover, Oe in 『A Personal Matter』, recognizes a personal experience of Bird who raises a handicapped child, as a common human issue and wants many people to live legitimate lives too without avoiding their problems. As explained above, he is conveying a message of salvation for humanity through this story. In addition to this, it is likely that Bird's last choice in 『A Personal Matter』 is an image of the most ideal acceptance which Oe chose, even expecting criticism about the end, as this novel is based on the author's personal experience. Next, this study analyzed images of 'Hiroshima' and 'Africa' which are important 'literary spaces' of 『A Personal Matter』. 'Hiroshima' used to represent a bleak uninhabited region and 'an image of death' to remind us of essential destruction, but is a 'symbol of peace' to wish that the worst disaster of humanity isn't repeated never again, at the same time. Oe discovered 'legitimacy of human being', meeting people in Hiroshima that are living their lives silently, and this experience as an author was reflected in this story. As above, he found a literary direction that he has to pursue in future and reaffirmed it in the symbolic place, 'Hiroshima'. In that sense, 'Hiroshima' is a crucial 'literary space' where is inseparable from the writer.. Also, Bird in the novel longs for 'Africa' to be free from the real life and Oe expresses that he is locked in a 'cage' about his suppressed freedom after the handicapped baby was born. Africa was adopted as an external space where he wants to escape to. 'Africa' in 『A Personal Matter』 is like an utopia 'symbolizing freedom', a target of longing for nature, exploration and adventure, but also contains 'an image of death' symbolizing violence of the real world, as Bird's African map indicates. From the political point of view, the 'cage' where Bird is 'locked up' is also associated with the dark situations of Africa that strived to be independent from Western powers and Japan after war. This 'Africa' is a 'literary space' which leads to a variety of interpretations in Oe's literary works including 『A Personal Matter』. In conclusion, both of 'Hiroshima' and 'Africa' were reflected in his story according to the writer's real experience or political circumstance, and contain images 'freedom', 'peace' or 'death'. Oe has constantly developed his works using images of these two spaces as ingredients to express his idea or value. As mentioned above, 'Hiroshima' and 'Africa' are important spatial backgrounds that laid the foundations for development of Oe's literary world.