© 2020 Journal of International and Advanced Japanese Studies
Vol. 12, February 2020, pp. 75-89
Master s and Doctoral Programs in International and Advanced
Japanese Studies
Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Tsukuba

ArticleRecovery versus Reversion: The Implications of Multiple Signifieds inŌoka Shōheiʼs Fires on the Plain
Erik R. LOFGREN
East Asian Studies Department, Bucknell University, Associate Professor

Much of the scholarship on Ōoka Shōheiʼs Fires on the Plain (Nobi, 1952; trans. 1957) is predicated on theassumption that the protagonist, Pfc. Tamura, is insane. This issue crystalizes when, at the end of thenovel, Tamura returns to behavior he had previously rejected, now unconcerned about what people might
think of him. The language Ōoka uses is subject to slippage which, in turn, creates trace structures ofrelated meaning that problematize this assumption of insanity. As a consequence, the reader is forced toconsider what meaning the text might have with a sane narrator, and why the author may have chosen to
claim insanity for his protagonist. The answers point to both the expectations of readers in the aftermathof Japanʼs defeat in World War Two, and a strengthening of the cautionary message implicit in the novel.
Keywords: Trace Structures, Shish setsu, Japanese Militarism, Post-structuralism

In the summer of 2014, the efforts by the government of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō to effect acontroversial reinterpretation of Japanʼs post-war constitution were in the news daily. The primary goal wasa redefinition of the term sh danteki jieiken (right of collective self-defense) from one that was extremely
restrictive, limiting Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to military actions only on Japanese territory, to one
that expanded on collective and conceptualized self-defense as geographically unrestricted.1 The Abe
Government wanted authorization for the JSDF to participate jointly in military operations outside of Japanʼssovereign territory, ostensibly to come to the aid of an ally under armed attack. A year later, despite substantial
resistance and opinion polls that showed the legislation to be exceedingly unpopular, the laws were rammed
through the Diet on September 19, 2015 (Muto 1).
Over seven decades after the end of the Greater East Asia War, the conflict that occasioned theconstitutional limitations that so irked the conservative Abe Government, it is beneficial to look at some of theliterature that came out of that same conflict. There we may find a cautionary tale for those intent on moving
Japan closer to its imperial past, as Abe seemed interested in doing when he declared at an Upper House
Budget Committee hearing that he was committed to revising the constitution within his term of office (Muto 1).
In response to Abeʼs intention to secure the first change to Japanʼs Constitution by 2020 (Sasaki 2), we might
1 At its most benign, the change might appear, to some advocates, as simply a logical extension of the PKO debatesof the 1990s.

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see in this moment an opportunity to reflect on the consequences of Japanʼs past military endeavors. There is no
shortage of literature that appeared in Japan at the end of World War II, and much of that corpus illuminates
the human costs of war and the dangers of passive acquiescence to the governmentʼs bellicose policies. Manyof the authors writing of the Pacific conflict appear unequivocal in their condemnation of the militaristic stancethat gave rise, ultimately, to Japanʼs defeat and singular instance of occupation. At least one well-regarded novel
paints a compelling picture of one end to which such a policy might lead and argues caution in embracing
remilitarization.
1. Thesis and Context
Sixty years prior to the revisionist efforts by the Abe government, seven years after Japanʼs defeat in WorldWar II, and two years into the Korean War, Fires on the Plain (Nobi, 1952; trans. 1957) by Ōoka Shōhei2 (1909–
1988), hit Japanese bookshelves. This version of the story is, in fact, a revision of its first public appearancesome four years earlier,3 a point of note precisely because one of the reasons Ōoka gives for reworking the novel
was the outbreak of another war (OSZ 14:183–84), and his disappointment at the celerity with which nationsreëngaged in this destructive form of statecraft. The protagonist, Tamura, is writing the novel six years after
he lost his memory in the war with the consequence that it places the telling of the tale in temporal proximitywith the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. Ōoka notes that the events of the day now meant a reworked
story in which […] the protagonist could write the story now rather than leave it for someone to find after his
death as was Ōokaʼs original plan (Lofgren, Christianity 273).
Although Fires on the Plain does not directly address the hawkish maneuvers of the Abe Government,
its anti-war message is as relevant today as it was when Ōoka published it in 1952. The current politicalenvironment offers, then, an opportunity to revisit one of the seminal anti-war novels to have come out of Japanin the aftermath of the Second World War by the author most notable among the many post-war authors”(Kusunoki 17).4 Of particular relevance is the putative psychological state of the protagonist. His apparent
insanity has allowed him, in no small degree, to sidestep responsibility for his cannibalistic actions in thePhilippines. The following reading, however, suggests that a slippage between signifiers (two separate but
clearly related character compounds) at one crucial moment late in the text means that accepting the claimof insanity unreservedly may be injudicious. Concomitant with that awareness comes the realization that
responsibility for oneʼs actions is not easily evaded by escape into sophistic excuses. Because one has little
difficulty allowing the concrete example of cannibalism to expand into a metaphor for the totality of war,that conclusion, that cautionary note, should resonate forcefully as Japan appears to be edging closer to its
militaristic past.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War in Japan, Ōoka Shōhei engaged in the cathartic processof literary construction, a process that served as a form of autotherapy for many intellectuals who experienced
the deracinating effects of that conflict. He, like many of his peers, published a novel, but unlike his fellow
writers, his work survived the heady days of easy obscurity that plagued many writing contemporaneouslywith him. Almost seven decades later, Fires on the Plain, Ōokaʼs representative work, holding the positionof a post-war classic (Isoda 77), offers significant insight into the trauma experienced by the Japanese who
2 All Japanese personal names are presented in accordance with Japanese custom: surname preceding given name.
3 Fires on the Plain first appeared in serialized form in 1948 in Buntai. The magazineʼs bankruptcy after the fourthissue meant that only half of the story appeared. Ōoka subsequently reworked the novel and it was serialized in
the journal Tenb in 1951 before it was published as a book in 1952. The initial text setting the context for the story
as it originally appeared in Buntai is available in oka Sh hei zensh 3:137–43. All subsequent references to thiscollection will be cited as OSZ.
4 It is important to note that this evaluation was originally written in 1952, shortly after Fires on the Plain was
published and when numerous novels treating the war by a broad group of authors loosely classified as the AprèsGuerre writers were appearing regularly. All translations from the Japanese are mine unless otherwise indicated.

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were conscripted and fought in the waning months of the Pacific War, and still evokes powerful images of atime that many in Japan would rather forget.5 Its notoriety, as well as its controversial themes and images, havemarked Fires on the Plain as fertile ground for academic scrutiny. This, and the almost intractable ideologicalorientation adopted by the Japanese towards the end of the war, and after the American occupation, that
requires a perfervid rejection of war in general,6 have assured that its place in the literary canon of major postwar works has remained virtually unassailable.
Much of the early critical writing that treats Fires on the Plain concerns itself with questions ofinfluence, intention, or the points of homologous symbolism between the two main themes of cannibalism andChristianity. Such concerns, while offering valuable insights into the work, fail to fully explicate the text for thesimple reason that most have been predicated, implicitly or explicitly, upon the assumption that the narrator/
protagonist was insane.7 Careful consideration of the text suggests that such a reading might be incomplete atleast, if not outright erroneous. Attention to the tenability of Tamuraʼs insanity provides a profitable approachin teasing out one interpretation of the text that has, to date, been overlooked by scholars. The following
reading debunks the underlying assumptions inherent in many works that antedate this one: namely, that theprotagonist of this memoir is, or was, mentally unstable. Once the text is allowed to liberate itself from thecarefully nurtured façade of insanity, a deeper understanding of tensions immanent in the text imposes itself
on the reader, one with far-reaching implications for a significant rereading of this pivotal Occupation-era workthat stretches into the Abe era.
A brief synopsis will serve as a foundation for the following analysis. The bulk of story is set near theend of World War II on Leyte Island in the Philippines and concerns Private first class Tamura of the JapaneseImperial Army. It opens in medias res as he is expelled from his unit because his tuberculosis8 prevents him fromgathering food, the primary concern of the routed Japanese troops. After wandering alone in the mountains formany days, he encounters two of his countrymen who have been surviving on the flesh of straggling Japanesesoldiers they have killed. A confluence of circumstances conspires to draw Tamura into their sordid world.
The treachery of one of the trio requires the remaining two to kill him, ostensibly for protection, but protection
both in the sense of removing the threat of bodily injury, as well as the sense of prolonging life through the
5 Abeʼs attempts to revise the constitution are but the most recent in a long line of efforts that offer an imperfectreflection of one aspect of this desire.

6 In contrast to what appears to be broad support for this anti-war stance, there is a marked lack of enthusiasm, often
played out publicly, for a sweeping recognition of Japanʼs guilt for its imperialistic actions in World War Two. In
this, Japan differs noticeably from the other major axis power, Germany. This ideological stance is undoubtedly acomponent of the Abe governmentʼs position on constitutional reform.
7 Some representative examples might be both Terada Tōru and Miyaji Yutaka who, in the 1950s, reference Tamuraʼsinsanity when discussing Ōokaʼs unusual approach to writing about natural scenery in Fires on the Plain (Terada
25; Miyaji 47). Terada, however, is even more explicit, saying that [t]he entirety of Fires on the Plain is the memoirsof a madman (26), a fact that undergirds his disquisition. Kusunoki Michitaka sees the madmanʼs diary aspectof Fires on the Plain as an essential component in the novelʼs successful and unusual construction (19). He claims
that Pfc. Tamuraʼs starvation brought him to insanity (20) and, after invoking the name of Freud, goes so far as toname the illness: schizophrenia"(20). Writing of the changes between the first appearance in Buntai (1948) and therevised appearance in Tenb (1951), Ikeda Junʼichi highlights Ōokaʼs decision to conceal the fact that the protagonist
is insane until the end of the novel as a significant improvement rectifying the original danger that [the reader] willlose interest"(140). Finally, Haniya Yutaka gives an implicit nod to the protagonistʼs insanity by referencing Fires on
the Plainʼs insights into the psychology of its readers (40–44, passim).
8 Tuberculosis is a provocative choice of illness beyond its long and obvious history in literature. The word fortuberculosis"̶kekkaku̶has a homophonic meaning of disqualification”, suggesting that Tamuraʼs sickness
disqualifies him from continued service in the army. Tamura says of his actions (he is specifically describing
murder rather than cannibalism) even if I were to be rescued, it was undoubtedly forbidden to me to dwell in [theworld of ordinary men] (OSZ 3:91). The name of the disease thus serves as a constant reminder of the fact that
he is unqualified to live in the world of humans. Such a rational awareness of oneʼs own worth is one point in theargument against his claim of insanity.

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consumption of his flesh. Morally unable to continue living in this way, Tamura kills his remaining companion
and at that point loses his memory. The novel reopens six years later in a sanatorium. Tamura has withdrawn
from the world and suffers from Messianic delusions. He is, ostensibly, insane and supposedly has been since hefirst considered eating human flesh. Tamura writes Fires on the Plain in an attempt to combat his retrogressive
amnesia and stimulate his memory about the events between murdering his companions and being put into an
American POW camp.
2. The Author/Narrator Homology Trap
Of the many topics for investigation immanent in Fires on the Plain, one that seems to inform much of
the early scholarship9 on the novel focuses on the question of fictionality and authenticity. A substantial bodyof the critical writing in this area intersects with shish setsu,10 a monumental tradition which has been thedominant discourse of Japanese fiction in the modern era. Although shish setsu resist an easy definition, it ispossible to offer a general framework within which they exist. Usually rendered into English as the I-novel
reflecting the fact that the protagonist/narrator is often a thinly-disguised representation of the author, theprimary concern lies in the unmediated representation of the authorʼs life which is achieved by an author withan attitude of unconcerned egocentricity that guarantees his sincerity and spontaneity (Hijiya-Kirschnereit
186). In other words, shish setsu are a first- or third-person narration about the authorʼs own experienceswith no fictional embellishment (Fowler 292) read with an assumption of the authenticity of the experiences
represented therein.11 This form is deeply rooted both in the literary establishment in Japan, and in theapprehending consciousness of the readers. It took many decades before authors were truly able to break awayfrom this form and experiment with newer styles without concern that their works might be measured against
the expectations of the shish setsu. In the aftermath of the Pacific War, it still remained difficult to escape fully
from the influence of this tradition. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to assume that the public would expect thework of an author writing immediately after the Second World War to conform to the dictates of this discourse,
especially in those cases when the subject matter of the novel appeared to hew so closely to his life experiences.
Two qualities of the shish setsu contribute to the present argument. While qualifying as a novel in theJapanese context, shish setsu share some similarities with autobiography, albeit with notable caveats.12 The
basic premise of the shish setsu is that of the unmediated presentation of the authorʼs life and emotions, but
in practice, this is not entirely accurate. Indeed, while the myth of sincerity fostered by the shish setsu might
induce one to claim it lacks any fictionality at all, the simple truth is that for authors writing shish setsu, theircommon struggles with authentic narrative representation were resolved in ways that, for all their supposed
fidelity to lived experience, reveal considerable editorial license and imagination (Fowler 292). In other words,
mediation comprises an integral part of the process whereby a shish setsu is created (as it does in any writtenwork) which introduces a degree of fictionality into the story for the simple reason that the mere act of writing
is, a priori, a fictionalizing process. The conclusion that either shish setsu or autobiography are, to some extent,
fictional should come as no surprise.
The second and more compelling point concerns the audience role of the literary coterie of the writercreating the shish setsu. The works were, in general, written for a specific group of people, people who were
9 I am referring here to roughly the quarter-century period immediately after the novelʼs publication.
10 The shish setsu is more formally known as watakushi-sh setsu, the difference in pronunciation arising from the two
possible readings of the first character. Most people accept Futon (“The Quilt", 1907; trans. 1981) by Tayama Katai(1872–1930) as the prototypical example of shish setsu. Both Edward Fowler (The Rhetoric of Confession) and
Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit (Rituals of Self-Revelation) provide thorough explanations of what the shish setsu is andwhat its role in modern Japanese letters has been.
11 This simple description, although convenient, is particularly problematic in its implicit ignorance of the mediating
effects of writing.
12 For a more complete explication of the relationship between autobiography and shish setsu, see Tomi Suzuki.

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intimately familiar with the life of the author. Consequently, a reading of any given work operated on twolevels: intratextual and extratextual. Those people reading the text brought to that task a knowledge of theauthorʼs life. Thus armed, they would read the work and see in it elements of the author. Once the protagonist
was identified as the author, intratextual modification would take place as the work was further explicated vis-àvis the earlier, privileged knowledge of the authorʼs life. The immediate consequence of this was an extratextual
codification of the authorʼs rewritten life in light of the new material gleaned from the story: actions andthoughts of the protagonist were transferred out of the text and onto the author to enhance and expand the
body of knowledge surrounding him. The reader embeds this new, revised knowledge back into the text andthe process starts anew. The work does not become a shish setsu, however, simply because the reader wants it
to be one. There is, rather, an implicit requirement that the author, too, agrees that the work fits this category.
Only when there is this kind of unspoken agreement between the reader and author does the novel become ashish setsu. This distinction is essential to bear in mind as we consider Fires on the Plain.
Broadly speaking, the literary milieu in Japan at the time Ōoka was first writing, and for many years prior
to that, predisposed the reading public to expect an author to write in accordance with the dictates and within
the confines of the shish setsu framework. Ōoka was trying to contravene that convention in an atmospherevery unforgiving of such an attempt. While Fires on the Plain is clearly not a shish setsu, for a number oftechnical reasons, it is certainly possible for a reader to imagine echoes of that shish setsu tradition within
its fictional confines.13 Therein lies the problem. What is there in the text that would encourage the reader toassociate the protagonist Tamura with author Ōoka? Although there is no clear one-to-one correspondence on
all counts, one occasionally catches a reflection or refraction of the latter in the former.14 Ōokaʼs fictionalized
use of his lived experiences within the text of Fires on the Plain has, at the very least, the potential effect of
encouraging readers to link him with his protagonist. That, in turn, has implications for understanding theinsanity Tamura claims for himself.
3. Insanity and Linguitic Slippage
In the seven decades since Fires on the Plain first appeared in print, the prevailing apprehension, tending
towards a consensus among readers, critics, and academicians, is that the protagonist produced the text as aform of therapy and that this action was rendered necessary by his mentally unstable state. Indeed, Tamura
says I am writing this in a room in a psychiatric hospital in the suburbs of Tokyo (OSZ 3:124). If he were notinsane, why else would he have voluntarily committed himself to a sanatorium six years after the end of thetraumatic, disorientating, deracinating Pacific conflict? Why else would he have lost his memory shortly after
partaking in the taboo of cannibalism, culminating in the murder of both of his cohorts? Indeed, one mightwell ask why else would he have engaged in the normally reprehensible act of cannibalism in the first place?
In fact, the entire novel is revealed to be nothing more than A Madmanʼs Diary (Ky jin nikki), a point which
is seemingly made explicit in the final three chapters (37–39) of the novel. There, we see the title of chapter
37, Kyōjin nikki which would seem to make the relation between Tamuraʼs psychological state and the text
13 Although too numerous to detail here, the similarities between the protagonist and the author of the novel arenotable. A few representative examples are: age and rank, exposure to cannibalism, expulsion from the unit becauseof illness, and a childhood connection to Christianity.
14 Critics often danced around the issue of how to evaluate Fires on the Plain in relation to the shish setsu for years
after it was published. Isoda Kōichi is just one of many critics who are clear in their distancing of Fires on the Plain
from a shish setsu. I do not think of these works as shish setsu in the usual sense (77). A representative summaryof the general consensus might be that [e]ven as Fires on the Plain is dependent upon actual experiences, itobjectifies them and appeals to us by placing in a fictional world the warp and woof of warʼs calamity and theimportance of the self (Suzuki, oka Sh hei ron 19). In other words, despite its clear reliance upon Ōokaʼs own
experiences, it functions in a way fundamentally different from a shish setsu, making it, fictional through andthrough (Suzuki, oka Sh hei ron 140).

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Volume 12 / February 2020of the preceding 36 chapters incontrovertible.15 Despite this apparent evidence to the contrary, various textual,semantic, and linguistic elements argue persuasively against the convenient but naïve conclusion that Tamura
is insane. It is to one of these textual ambiguities that we shall now turn our attention.
A close reading of Fires on the Plain, in its several iterations, reveals a linguistic contradiction thatproblematizes the long-accepted premise of the novel. In fact, Pfc. Tamuraʼs putative insanity may simply
be a condemnation of the very society that seeks to excoriate him for his extra-societal activities. The social
sanctions and restructuring that serve as conventional limiters on humanityʼs excesses were, in essence, notapplicable to the reality of the Philippines which the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army knew in the depthsof their abandonment and subsequent disorganized katabasis.
The problematic linguistic element is rooted in the structure of the Japanese language itself. The myriad
ideographs (kanji) that are currently in use in standard writing were largely originally imported from China
over many years. The chronological gaps that separated the periods of borrowing provided the evolving
Japanized character system with a vast number of kanji that were phonetically and visually dissimilar (multiple
signifiers), yet ostensibly denoted the same thing (single signified). Further, although the characters were
intrinsically differentiated phonetically an author could, in fact, assign to any character a reading (ateji) thatmatched the original Chinese meaning of the character.16 The possibility of synonyms was great, but often
synonyms that might be synonymous with two words of unrelated or opposite meanings: a root word with two
branches of signifieds or synonyms while the branches remained dissimilar save for the root word.
The relevance this historical development has for understanding the uncertainty of Tamuraʼs insanity isevident in a single word that appears at a critical moment in the text. In pre-war Japan, there were two accepted
ways of writing kaifuku（回復 and 恢復）, a compound made up of two characters, kai and fuku.17 The second
character, 復 , is the same in both compounds. Among its varied, independent meanings are the following:
revert to , be restored to , return to normal or original state . It is the first character that is of significanceto this discussion. Prior to the post-war educational reforms, the two characters used for the first elementof the compound attributed different meanings to the new conjoined linguistic element. This multiplicity offorms, each ostensibly signifying the same thing, yet each concomitantly allowing slight slippage in that which
is signified, construct the foundation upon which an insidious contradiction is built within the structural
assumptions that govern the characters in the text of Fires on the Plain. In this tension is revealed how the text
functions against its own explicit (metaphysical) assertions, not just by creating ambiguity, but by inscribinga systematic other message behind or through what is being said (Derrida, Dissemination xiii, emphasis inoriginal).
The trace structures that inhere in the first character of the compound thus complicate the potential
meaning of kaifuku. When we consider the two possibilities, the character in the first compound, 回 , implies
a simple revolving. In the second compound, the first character, 恢 , implies a widening or enlarging. Strictly
speaking, when this widening kai is combined with fuku 復 , the second compound（恢復）connotes a simple
15 Ōoka relates in both Sokai nikki (Evacuation diary, 1953) and Nobi no ito (My intention in Fires on the Plain, 1953)(not to be confused with an earlier essay with the same title that appeared in the July 1952 issue of S gen) that an
early working title for Fires on the Plain was Ky jin nikki. See OSZ 14:3–23 and OSZ 14:173–93. In Jinnikushoku
ni tsuite (On cannibalism, 1973), Ōoka mentions the turn-of-the-century Chinese author Lu Xunʼs (1881–1936)
Kuangren riji (Diary of a Madman; trans 1990) written in 1918 as an inspiration for both the concept and the title.
16 This simplification ignores another aspect of ateji: characters may be assigned a reading (and, by extension, a
specific signified) that is at odds with convention.
17 Miyaji Yutaka claims his philologic study will consider the characters and vocabulary (41) Ōoka uses to explicate
Fires on the Plain. Sadly, although he does discuss the frequency of some specific vocabulary items, he does not
actually delve as deeply as individual character choices such as the one under consideration here. It is worth noting,however, that he does offer a general comment on Ōokaʼs choice of kanji. Despite the fact that Ōoka is consistentin his use of classical orthography, he gives no consideration whatsoever to matters such as officially-sanctioned
characters for daily use [t y kanji] (45), although Miyaji opines that this may be a function of the authorʼs age.

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restoration to a previous condition (either good or bad) in contradistinction to the first compound（回復）which
denotes not only a restoration to a previous condition but also a recovery from an illness to a healthy state; inshort, getting better.18
In the years since 1948, this distinction has blurred to the point of meaninglessness. Asking a junior orsenior high-school student in Japan today if there is a difference between these two compounds will likely elicit
exclamations of uncertainty mixed with ignorance: most may not even know the kai character 恢 for the simple
reason that it lies outside the 2,136 j y kanji (characters for regular use) currently proscribed for basic literacy
by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. The kai character 回 has almost fully
replaced the multiplicity available to earlier authors. Ōoka, however, was under no such restriction in 1952 when
he published the first complete serialized edition of Fires on the Plain. In order to distinguish between these twocompounds, I will use the following convention. The 回復 compound shall be represented by (Kf)rc, where (Kf)denotes kaifuku and the subscript rc corresponds to recovery. In contrast to this (Kf)rv shall represent the 恢復compound where (Kf) again represents kaifuku and the subscript rv implies a reversion.
(Kf)rc = recovery from an illness 回復(Kf)rv =reversion to a previous state 恢復
The meaning of kaifuku, in other words, is far from the stable meaning equated with speech precisely because
it is written, that is to say, visual. Yet even in speech, the homophonous nature of the Japanese language resists
stability. In fact, it struggles against the diacritical sense of language with its dependence on a structured
economy of differences which allows a relatively small range of linguistic elements to signify a vast repertoireof negotiable meanings (Norris 25).
However, even the distinction between (Kf)rc and (Kf)rv presented above is artificial simply because (Kf)rv
can signify (Kf)rc by convention reflecting the diachronic linguistic change all languages undergo. That is, thetrace structure of kaifuku and the multiple implications the term embeds as a result of its constantly sliding
signifieds means that the interpretation, the reading, is necessarily endlessly deferred. This instability, combinedwith the fact that both (Kf)rc and (Kf)rv can only be distinguished visually, not aurally, naturally calls to mind aneologism that encapsulates this avoidance of semantic stability. It is in the systematic play of the differences
between the concepts inscribed in the chain of signification within which it refers to the other that such aplay, différance, is thus no longer simply a concept, but rather the possibility of conceptuality, of a conceptual
process and system in general (Derrida, Différance 11). The violent tension inherent in Derridaʼs usage ofdifférance, which engenders a disruption or disturbance on the level of the signifier creating a visual reminderof the plurality of meaning suspended within the interstices of language, compares favorably with the tissue
of interconnected traces that the term kaifuku sets up, its refusal to yield to a transcendental signified.
Ōokaʼs use of kaifuku appears at the end of the novel. Tamura has become the victim of a psychosomatic
illness stemming from an incident during his time on Leyte. [His] left hand grabbed the wrist of [his] righthand, which was holding the bayonet (OSZ 3:100) when he attempted to cut off the meat from the body of adead compatriot freely offered just prior to his death. The extent of this psychosis gradually expanded until
all food, whether meat or not, prompted the same physical response. Tamura explains that this strange action
has become a habit for my left hand. When I think of eating something I shouldnʼt, my left hand moves of its
own accord and grips the hand holding the spoon, that is, my right wrist, from above even before that foodappears in front of me (OSZ 3:100). Moreover, he would apologize to any food̶animal or vegetable̶prior toconsuming it. Years later, while Tamura languishes in the mental institution, he ruminates about the course androot of his illness, a natural consequence of which is reflection on his abnormal behavior. As the following
18 See Morohashi: fuku 復 , no. 10183; kai 回 (revolving), no. 4690; kai 恢 (widening), no. 10577.
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passage indicates, however, Tamura himself is not convinced that his actions and, the conditions that gave riseto them, are particularly abnormal; nor, by extension, that he is ill.
Consequently, even when I again reverted to the ceremony of bowing before my dinner table
and refusing all food five years later, there was, as far as I was concerned, no basis to think it
particularly strange nor to feel it must be stopped. Even when once again, my left hand grabbed
my right, I could not help it for̶perhaps it was God̶it was moved by something other thanme.
(OSZ 3:126, emphasis added)19
That the English translation does not̶indeed, cannot̶accurately reflect the subtle implications of the (Kf)rv
characters used for kaifuku20 is the linguistic sticking point of concern in this discussion.
Any system of language is entirely differential, for the meaning of a signifier lies not in a relation or
representation, as a word to a thing, but only in its syntagmatic and associative difference from other signifiers.
Consequently, because writing, for example, no longer simply means words on a page, but rather any
differential trace structure, a structure that also inhabits speech (Derrida, Dissemination xiii), one cannot
simply accept the standard interpretation of kaifuku as (Kf)rv. The text itself creates an ambiguity that resists
disambiguation. Neither (Kf)rv nor (Kf)rc can claim presence as both are always-already in the text and, atthe same time, not there, engaged in an eternal oscillation. This is, however, precisely the environment that
produces a différance, a moment in the text where the unintentional significations borne of the pluripotency
inherent in a sphere of meaning that lie beyond consciousness (although not out of its reach) are suddenly
evident. Language is always bound and expanded by a network of differential traces, such as those we see withkaifuku, which can never fully be grasped by the individual speaker, yet which are essential for communication.
Without the trace, all words would have an inviolable meaning, clear to all. The play, the uncertainty, that gives
rise to contradictory meanings or double entendre, for example, would not exist. In the case we are considering,
the shish setsu tradition placed Ōoka in the difficult position of̶apparently and without his consent̶being
merged into the novel by readers.21 These traces are also violently disruptive of the received truth of the work
as it has been perceived for the past 70 years.
4. Insane or Sane?
Recognition of the play in signifieds inherent in kaifuku raises an important issue that substantially
undermines any claim of insanity on the part of the protagonist. To say that Tamura was recovering something
19 Ōoka uses (Kf)rv. For the sake of comparison, I include here the text from Ivan Morrisʼs translation:
When, five years after my return, I resumed the ceremony of bowing in front of the dining
table, and once more began to refuse all sorts of food, I was not inclined to regard this behavior
as strange or to give it up. Nor could I help the fact that now my left hand would again stretch out
to grasp my right hand; for I was being impelled by something outside myself̶by God, perhaps.
(Ooka, Fires 230, emphasis added)

20 It is important to recognize that this appears to be the only instance in the entire novel in which Ōoka uses

kaifuku of either stripe. Thus, it is impossible to state categorically that Ōoka was working consciously to subvert
a particular reading through this specific choice; however, the fact that the choice was made̶consciously orotherwise̶is clear, and the potential consequences of that decision are what concern us here, for language
constantly seeks to escape the fetters of intention.
21 Obviously, the most damning equivalence would be in the realm of cannibalism. Ōoka categorically rejected any
notion that he had actually practiced cannibalism in Nobi no ito (1953): [h]ad I the experience of cannibalism,that would have been terrible (OSZ 14:176). Two decades later, Ōoka still felt it necessary to stress his innocence. In
Jinnikushoku ni tsuite (1973), he reiterates that [T]he question I am asked most frequently is whether or not that[cannibalism] is my experience. If I had actually had a cannibalistic experience, that would have been abominable;of course, it is fiction (OSZ 16:520).

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lost [(Kf)rv], returning to an original state, is merely to say that that original state is once again the dominantdiscourse of his actions. If, however, the additional, permitted and logical, reading of “recovery from an illness"[(Kf)rc] is privileged, then the situation changes dramatically. It is to a supposedly anomalous state that he isrecovering. Consequently, he is getting better by reverting to a state he̶and the critics writing about Fireson the Plain̶had thought was symptomatic of his insanity. In other words, what appeared to be sanity was,in fact, insane, and his reversion from that state was to one perceived as insane but which really is thatof sanity.22 Might, then, that state be, in fact, one that is not associated with insanity but, rather, normalcy?
Certainly, this is neither unreasonable nor impossible given the extreme situation of ostracism, abandonment,
and physical decay in which Tamura had been enveloped on Leyte.
Clearly, one might advance the argument that context guides the reading and this supposed ambiguity
should be resolved before it becomes an issue. While this supposition is not without merit, it also fails to
consider two points. The first is the effects of the readers desire to see elements of the shish setsu in Fires on
the Plain and the implications that has for a constant re-reading of a text in light of the information gleaned
from that text and that known about the author. The second is the discontinuity inherent in Tamuraʼs residence
in a sanatorium which stands in direct contrast to̶indeed, struggles against in an attempt to invalidate̶his
experiences in the Philippines.23 The text up to the point in question has established that the protagonist views
the ritualistic reaction of his hands with some sense of disquietude. The first time it occurred, Tamura wasdelirious, famished, and close to death.
What, are you still here? Poor bastard. When I die you can eat this (OSZ 3:99). With these words, asoldier on the verge of death offers Tamura his emaciated left arm as food. Tamura is thrown into a moral andethical dilemma over whether he should eat this manʼs arm to preserve his own life. The thought is not a newone. Tamura has already seen countless corpses that were, mysteriously, missing the flesh on their buttocks(OSZ 3:95). A harbinger of the implications inherent in these mutilated bodies were the dead soldiers Tamura
discovered around the church in an abandoned village by the sea. Gradually it dawns on him that these wounds
originate not from the fierce battle for Leyte Island, but in the equally fierce struggle by the disorganized andunsupported Japanese troops to survive. Concomitant with this realization comes an assault by similar desires,and a sense of revulsion that the idea of cannibalism came to him so readily.
The rapid putrefaction of corpses under the tropical conditions of the Philippines as well as his own
spiritual vacillation have kept Tamura from acting on his inhuman̶or, extremely human̶impulses. But now,
not only is he presented with a fresh corpse, he has the blessings of its owner. Tamura decides to save himself
and eat this gift. As soon as he makes a move in that direction, however, his body betrays him by instinctively
protecting him from violating one of societyʼs greatest taboos.
At that moment, an odd thing occurred. My left hand grabbed the wrist of my right hand,which was holding the bayonet. Since that time, this strange action has become a habit for myleft hand. When I think of eating something I shouldnʼt, my left hand moves of its own accord
and grips the hand holding the spoon, that is, my right wrist, from above even before that foodappears in front of me.
(OSZ 3:100)
22 Kamei Hideo focuses on this precise passage, also singling out the term kaifuku for emphasis, and arrives at asimilar conclusion, albeit for a different reason. That [resumption] is not to insanity; that is a reversion [(Kf)rv]
to sanity (192). He goes on to observe that [i]n this moment, one can recognize the actual meaning with which theauthor imbued this novel… (192).
23 This shift is seen by many critics as the novelʼs major flaw, a failed attempt to connect the context of one past war(World War II) to a conflict contemporaneous with the publication of the novel (the Korean War). Ichikawa Konʼs
1959 film adaptation of Fires on the Plain omits these final chapters, a change that figures prominently in my earlier
analysis. See Lofgren, Christianity.”83

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This is part of the evidence Tamura offers for his supposed insanity, yet where is the insanity in attempting
to preserve the taboo against cannibalism? Surely this is a normal state. Or, perhaps, the insanity is simply an
unwillingness to preserve life.
Tamuraʼs cannibalism is certainly not unthinkable when considered rationally. Logically, the situation inFires on the Plain should engender no sense of moral outrage, save that which might be associated with war
in general. It was a soldierʼs obligation to fight for the Emperor and Japan. To do so, he had to be fit, which
requires food. The Filipino natives were enemies of the Japanese Imperial Army, so shooting them was anaction not without justification in the context of a military need for security. Once dead, why should the flesh
not be consumed if it could save the lives of the Japanese soldiers, thereby allowing them to fight on for theircountry? Taken one step further, to kill a straggling Japanese soldier with no chance of survival in order that
other soldiers might live and carry on the battle is not as execrable as it might, at first glance, appear. This
aspect of the equation is seen in the contrast between Tamuraʼs moral reticence and his companions pragmatic
approach to a life-sustaining substance (although in this case, neither Nagamatsu nor Yasuda had any intentionof continuing to function as soldiers in service of their country).
Once the idea of insanity has been destabilized, it is, in effect, undergoing erasure, replaced, at least
temporarily, with the possibility of sanity. It is instructive, in this context, to consider Derrida ʼs observationthat if writing is inaugural it is not so because it creates, but because of a certain absolute freedom of speech,
because of the freedom to bring forth the already-there as a sign of the freedom to augur (Writing 13, emphasis
in original). In the context of kaifuku, the augured already-there in (Kf)rv is the equally acceptable (Kf)rc which turns
the text in upon itself: Tamura is sane. Therefore, when he is discussing his resumption of his ceremony ofbowing before a meal, he is reverting to a healthy state and, by extension, one of sanity. Indeed, Tamura speaksof this condition as normal, for it is neither new nor surprising. People saw me as insane. Yet I have decided̶
and it is still so̶to feel no shame for performing an action I cannot help performing (OSZ 3:125).
Recall that (Kf)rv and (Kf)rc are both signifiers of the notion of recover but that (Kf)rv also allows
the slippage seen in the trace to the (Kf)rc notion of healing. This multiplicity, in turn creates an aporia ofuncertainty. It is certain that in speech there is already mediation but the signifiers disappear as soon as they
are uttered; they do not obtrude, and the speaker can explain any ambiguities to insure that the thought has
been conveyed. It is in writing that the unanticipated aspects of mediation become apparent. Writing presents
language as a series of physical marks that operate in the absence of the speaker (Culler 91). It is not, however,misfortune but insight that is offered here by the effects of mediation. They provide the valuable explication of
the text that yields a revised reading which expands the understanding of Fires on the Plain and the discourse
it engenders.
What value was there to Ōoka to present an image of Tamura as insane even though that contradicts
a possible trace-structure reality of the written word which would indicate he is in full possession of all his
mental faculties? It is not clear until the last section of the novel that the narrator/protagonist is ostensibly
in a condition of mental instability. This delay also encourages the freeplay of the trace for readers are, as aconsequence, already implicitly encouraged to consider Tamura sane. With this new (revealed) interpretation,
the text disrupts itself with the result that Tamuraʼs story becomes questionable, and once the narrative isloosed from the moorings of insanity, the freeplay immanent in the text and exemplified by the logographic
distinction we have been considering work in concert to further the problematization of Tamuraʼs claim of
insanity.
Tamura relates the events leading up to his voluntary internment with a coldly clinical eye for detail.
His analytical style and precise notation of the myriad details along his journey undermine his statement that
he is (or was) insane. It is quite obvious that the chronological order of the events leading up to the point at
which Tamura loses his memory is generally without the anachronous relationships that might be expected topermeate the story of a madman. In fact, even though the entire narrative is subordinate to the present in which
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Tamura is in a sanatorium, the factual, chronological, accuracy is constant. Indeed, to paraphrase Derrida, how
can Tamura be mad when [he] think[s] and when [he has] clear and distinct ideas (Writing 52).
We see, in some of the critical corpus, intimations that support this conclusion. Miyoshi Yukio, ostensibly
writing about the war and God as manifest in Fires on the Plain, offers one such example. The seed of hisargument lies in the duality Miyoshi perceives between the competing forces of reality and insanity that operate
in the novel. Because Ōoka was unable fully to resolve the contradictions between these two forces, Miyoshi
argues, he was forced to decide which would take precedence. Opting for the former, insanity is relegated to an
ancillary position in the structure of the novel and reality is privileged in service of believability. Miyoshi builds
a case against an insane person accurately describing an extreme situation, asserting instead that one requires
full cognizance and use of oneʼs mental faculties to engage in such a task.
Of course the words extreme situation of the insane contain a clear self-contradiction.
When a clear-headed person reports on the despairing consciousness of a situation that has
happened to him, that is when the extreme nature of the situation materializes. He must not beinsane. At the same time, Ōoka, author of Diary of a POW, absolutely could not have entrusted
the reporting of the extreme conditions pursuing those humans thrown into the battlefield to amadman.
(370–71)
This is a bold assertion that the author of Fires on the Plain, by virtue of the extreme conditions he isnarrating, cannot be insane.24 One cannot help wondering, however, why this conclusion, so carefully developedby Miyoshi, is not taken to its logical completion: explicit absolution of Tamuraʼs insanity. The very elementthat casts doubt on Tamuraʼs claim also suggests a solution to this conundrum:
It is because of différance that the movement of signification is possible only if eachso-called present element, each element appearing on the scene of presence, is related tosomething other than itself, thereby keeping within itself the mark of the past element, andalready letting itself be vitiated by the mark of its relation to the future element, this trace being
related no less to what is called the future than to what is called the past, and constituting what
is called the present by means of this very relation to what it is not: what it absolutely is not, noteven a past or future as a modified present.
(Derrida, Différance 13)
The text has the past and future traces of a polysemous signifier in its present. The play of signifieds produces
readings that inscribe both possibilities for it must embody that multiplicity and it, logically, offers even more
readings. While it is clear that the text signifies in more than one way, it is equally evident that there will bevarying degrees of explicitness in this signification. It is hardly surprising that within the critical corpus, theexplicitness of reversion has overshadowed that of recovery for many years.
A second result of this revealed, alternate reading̶although it has always-already been in the text̶
concerns a struggle extrinsic to the novel.
Ōoka, saddled with the historical predisposition of the bundan and reading public to judge
24 Miyoshi also implies that Ōoka and Tamura are, effectively, synonymous, demonstrating his faith in the Husserliantransparency of language̶a position fundamental to the shish setsu paradigm and discourse which obviously
informs his reading of this text and our consideration of (Kf)rv.

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a novelʼs worth by the extent to which the author is visible in the work, […] had to do something
to break out of this constricting mold […]. Consequently, he was forced to cast doubt upon theauthenticity of Fires on the Plain by drawing attention to the one point that could most damn
him in the eyes of the public judge. By problematizing the issue of culpability, Ōoka was, in
effect, distancing his person from what the public may have been inclined to interpret as his
literary persona.
(Lofgren, Ideological 412)
It is evident, thus, that Ōoka retreated from factual reality vis-à-vis the theme of cannibalism as he tried to
distance his person from that of his persona, Tamura.25 From the point of view of subverting the undesirable
assumption that Fires on the Plain was a shish setsu, it is evident that creating a character who is insane as aresult of his contravention of a social taboo only strengthens the distancing of Ōoka from Tamura. A readingthat acknowledges the trace structures inherent in kaifuku, however, subverts the simple conclusion thatinsanity is the implicit theme of Fires on the Plain. This is of particular importance as the veil of insanity is but
one of several devices utilized by Ōoka in his effort to convince the reading public of the novelʼs unquestioned
fictionality.26
Thus, the simple binary opposition established on the surface of the text, between sanity and insanity iscalled into question by a single word. This aporia generates a second text diametrically opposed to the first,
where each becomes the other. Yet in so doing, a new binary opposition is created which, in turn, leaves itself
open for rereading. The text collapses in on itself and, in the process, provides a tantalizing glimpse of theconflict of discourses that abound in the novel and, despite Derridaʼs contention that il nʼy a pas de hors-texte,
outside it as well. For a comprehensive reading and understanding of Fires on the Plain and Ōokaʼs relation tothat work and the reading public, it is essential that the trace structures of a single word kaifuku at the end of
the novel be accorded the influence they are due. Failure in this regard beggars the text.
5. Conclusion
It is easy to see why scholars believe that Ōoka was criticizing Japan for aligning itself with war(Suzuki, oka Sh hei ron 143) through its support of the United States. As we noted at the outset, the time inwhich Tamura was writing Fires on the Plain coincides with the outbreak of the Korean War (Kamei 192).
This made him a putative spokesman for the nation which had just emerged from a disastrous war half adecade earlier, and whose people were still actively adopting a position of victim, both of the atomic bombs,
and of their own governmentʼs militaristic excesses. In such an environment, critics and readers alike may be
excused for accepting Tamuraʼs narrative of insanity at face value, yet to do so unquestioningly is, as we haveseen, to lose perspective that is equally important for evaluating Japanʼs war efforts and the ideological nexus
that supported it.
The implications for an understanding of the novel of the slippage between (Kf)rv and (Kf)rc are profound.
Insanity is one device Ōoka used to provide cover for his protagonist, and that cover is particularly important
25 Kaga Otohiko echoes this view when he argues that having the story take place on Leyte rather than Mindoro
implies a conscious distancing of creation from author (42).

26 It is of particular note that Ōoka felt the need to buttress the fictionality of Tamuraʼs narration. This was not,however, the only context in which he found himself battling readers perceptions. His first novel, Furyoki (Taken
Captive: A Japanese POW's Story, 1952; trans. 1996) explicitly drew upon the authorʼs experiences as a prisoner ofwar. Even so, Ōoka preferred to view it as predominantly non-fiction reportage with a modicum of fictional license.
Ōoka stresses this point, saying that while in some sense, Furyoki does accord with the tradition of shish setsu, I
would like to confess that in my case, however, as I was writing the novel of a POW, the I in the work gradually
moved away from me, myself (OSZ 14:61). The putative reason for this gradual separation was a desire not to
expose himself to the public (OSZ 14:62).

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Erik R. LOFGREN, Recovery versus Reversion: The Implications of Multiple Signifieds in Ōoka Shōheiʼs Fires on the Plainin 1952. Tamura was created under the American Occupation, and at a time, in 1948, just after-pre-publication
censorship by SCAP had been lifted. That Tamura was guilty, in his role as a synecdoche for the Japanesemilitary, of crimes, the sin of which besmirched his very person and resisted all attempts to expiate it. By
1952, however, the Occupation was packing up to leave and the general sense of the nation was undergoinga transformation from guilt for the war to a sense of victimhood stemming from Japanʼs position as the only
nation to have suffered an atomic bombing.27 In this context, the insanity claim provides, however marginally,a veneer of insulation from the tacit admission of guilt required under Japanʼs foreign occupiers. The play ofmultiple signifieds that inheres in the kaifuku compound further reënforces this shielding effect: if Tamura
is not insane, then his actions are not necessarily deserving of excoriation. His role as synecdoche functions,rather, as one that proclaims the broader role of the soldier who was forced into an untenable situation inservice of his country. The clear, positive emphasis is on the latter half of this statement.
The shift in Tamuraʼs culpability might be seen as but the first step on a seven-decade journey to the Abe
Cabinet slogan of Retake Japan”. Muto cautions that if something has been lost, then [i]t is the essence of
the Empire of Japan (5). It might be prudent for the Abe government to consider the warning Ōoka provides
through Tamura: one cannot hide from the responsibility of war. Even allowing for a reconsideration of
Tamura as synecdoche, Fires on the Plain is a work whose principle objective is to emphasize the folly of war(Suzuki, oka Sh hei ron 62). The slippage of kaifuku signifieds that allows Tamuraʼs insanity to apparently
evaporate into the haze of Japanese post-war amnesia for responsibility also simultaneously calls the reader
back to the constructed role of that insanity. Tamura needed what it provided as a way to cope with what the
war had wrought on his psyche.28 In other words, it was War that made Tamura do what he did, and it was War
that left him broken and suffering six years later when he undertook to write Fires on the Plain.
The slippage of signifieds in kaifuku problematize Tamuraʼs insanity, but that same slippage, thatsame lack of a transcendental signified mean that it is ever present as a trace. Ōokaʼs message is thatthe consequences of war are severe, and the repercussions for those involved are deep, long-lived, and soundesirable that they can lead to fantasies to protect the individual from the traumatizing experience. Withknowledge of Tamuraʼs deployment of insanity, we are primed to recognize that Abeʼs Retaking Japan mayvery well lead the nationʼs people back to the same hell inhabited by Ōokaʼs protagonist. Tamuraʼs cogent
observation that [o]f those humans who do know not war, half are children (OSZ 3:127) echoes particularly
poignantly here for it is the young who will fight, the young who will inhabit that hell. As Fires on the Plainmakes clear, it is a hell from which recovery is but a chimera and against which no claim of insanity canprotect.29

Contact email: elofgren@bucknell.edu

27 I provide an explication of the ideological transformation that one witnesses in the various iterations of Fires on
the Plain ( Ideological 401–21 ), including a consideration of the mental state of the protagonist, in the context of
this shift from victimizer to victim consciousness. Muto examines this same transformation from the perspectiveof the war crimes trials (9–10). Tomoyuki Sasaki articulates how this notion of victimhood is one of three pillars
supporting rightistsʼcall for constitutional revision (3).
28 The same might easily be said of Ōoka. Indeed, numerous works treating Fires on the Plain address thepsychologically cathartic role writing the novel had for the author.
29 I wish to thank Marjorie Perloff for her initial encouragement, and the two anonymous reviewers for the journal
who provided thoughtful, stimulating feedback.

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