Voluntary Death in Japan

Voluntary Death in Japan
Author :
Publisher : Polity
Total Pages : 394
Release :
ISBN-10 : STANFORD:36105003397416
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Book Synopsis Voluntary Death in Japan by : Maurice Pinguet

Download or read book Voluntary Death in Japan written by Maurice Pinguet and published by Polity. This book was released on 1993-06-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most Western observers, the Japanese practice of voluntary death, whether the self-inflicted sword-stroke of a warrior or the simultaneous suicide of lovers, is shocking and difficult to understand. The practice of voluntary death is deeply alien to Western Culture and to the Christian view that God alone is entrusted with power over life and death. In Japan, however,a tradition of voluntary death has existed for more than a millenium. The suicides of samurai warriors, of kamikaze fighter pilots, of artists and lovers are part of a tradition which stretches back over many centuries and which expresses a distinctive way of relating to death. In this profound and sensitive study, Maurice Pinguet carefully reconstructs this tradition of voluntary death and relates it to other aspects of Japanese culture and society. He shows that, in early Japanese myths and legends, acts of self-immolation were often exalted as an ideal. A self-effacing suicide was viewed as an ethical act: a way of restoring order in a world disrupted by conflict or marred by failure. Pinguet examines in detail the customs and elaborate rituals which surrounded the practice of voluntary death in different times and among different groups, from the seppuka practised by warriors in the thirteenth century to the suicide of Mishima in the twentieth. The result is a brilliant and absorbing analysis of Japanese culture and society - an analysis which, by focusing on a practice that is radically different from our own, tells us something about Western civilization as well.


Voluntary Death in Japan Related Books

Voluntary Death in Japan
Language: en
Pages: 394
Authors: Maurice Pinguet
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1993-06-14 - Publisher: Polity

GET EBOOK

For most Western observers, the Japanese practice of voluntary death, whether the self-inflicted sword-stroke of a warrior or the simultaneous suicide of lovers
Suicide in Twentieth-Century Japan
Language: en
Pages: 269
Authors: Francesca Di Marco
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-01-29 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

Japan’s suicide phenomenon has fascinated both the media and academics, although many questions and paradoxes embedded in the debate on suicide have remained
Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan
Language: en
Pages: 280
Authors: Alan Stephen Wolfe
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-07-14 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) is one of Japan's most famous literary suicides, known as the earliest postwar manifestation of the genuinely alienated writer in Japan.
Japantown
Language: en
Pages: 432
Authors: Barry Lancet
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-09-03 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

GET EBOOK

Named Best of Debut of the Year by Suspense Magazine and the winner of the Barry Award for Best Debut Novel.​ In this “sophisticated international thriller�
Dying and Death
Language: en
Pages: 233
Authors: Asa Kasher
Categories: Family & Relationships
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007 - Publisher: Rodopi

GET EBOOK

Death is a topic people are reluctant to ponder. Neither is dying a process that is usually being openly discussed. However, on a variety of occasions, dying an