The Fifteen-Year War and its Costs

In the 1930s, Japan made numerous fateful decisions—miscalculations, some might say—that propelled the country towards military aggression in China and eventually war with the United States. The war turned out to be a particularly brutal and destructive one, but it was also a war in which the Japanese government, largely in the hands of the military, was extremely skilled at mobilizing all citizens and imbuing them with a sense of mission, convincing them that it was a cause worth sacrificing everything for. How do you think the Japanese leadership succeeded in making their discourse so compelling as in the Kokutai no Hongi and the Way of the Subjects (Shimen no michi) In the variety of possible explanations for Japan's actions, are there some that you think are the most compelling?

The texts for this final paper—The Harp of Burma, both the novel and film, Twenty-four Eyes and James Orr's chapter on "Sentimental Humanism"—offer some of the reflections of Japanese writers and directors about the experience of the war. In the final paper, I would like you to discuss how the Japanese themselves reflected upon the dilemma of the war in the early postwar years. Write an essay that explores the vantage points found in the films we watched in class, The Harp of Burma and Twenty-four Eyes, and James Orr's reflections as an outsider on the latter film, and express how you feel that this process of reflection has gone.

How would you characterize these reflections? Do you find them deep and sincere? Are they meaningful? Do they help viewers or readers come to terms with the past? What sort of contrasting viewpoints do they present about the causes and nature of the war, about its effects, and about the nature of Japan itself? What do we learn from these materials about how Japanese responded to questions about the causes and consequences of war? In the novel and film, The Harp of Burma, how is Japan portrayed? How are Japanese soldiers portrayed? How does this text work as a critique of prewar policies and values? What would Takeyama/Ichikawa (the Director) change about Japan if they could? Does the portrayal of the lives of the children in Keisuke Kinoshita's Twenty-four Eyes operate as a critique of prewar society and its values? Following the article by Orr, what are some limitations of this critique?

You might want to begin your essay with a few paragraphs touching on the factors that drove Japan to go to war. Were there some factors that were touched upon in either of the films or the novel? Then you can proceed to break the films down, analyze them and draw your conclusions about how effective they are at what they attempt to do. On my webpages for each film, I did include some of the relevant dialogue if you need to quote some of the character's lines.

Length, 6-8 pages; officially Due Monday, December 12, 3:00 pm but given that this deadline comes up very quickly, you can have a couple of more days. No later than Thursday noon.