Father, Where Are You Going: The Image of Father in Ōe Kenzaburo's Short Stories

Abstract

The father-son relationship is a recurring theme in Kenzaburō Ōe’s works. In his short story collection Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Ōe portrays several alienated and alienating fathers, which challenge the traditional images of the father. The aim is to explore the image of the father in this collection of stories in relation to their cultural and historical background. By using an existentialist approach and new historicism, this study demonstrates that the portrait of the father is connected to Ōe’s traumatic experience in his personal life and reflects post-war Japanese society.