In Japanese literature, two names are often lumped together: Soseki Natsume and Ogai Mori. Both are noted for having written during the fall of the Meiji Era — or what marked the decline of the classical image of Japan as it struggled to accept the new Western influences. They are also two writers who were hugely impacted by the suicide of General Nogi (which was carried out following the death of Emperor Meiji). Soseki’s novel, Kokoro, contains the influence of such, and many of his works have been translated into English. Ogai, however, is not as easily available in translation.
The Wild Geese is the first Ogai novel I’ve read, and it is interesting to notice how he has influenced many later writers, like Tanizaki and Kawabata. The Wild Geese takes place during the fall of the Meiji Era, and involves a young woman who puts her father’s happiness before her own. Thus, to please him, Otama agrees to become a mistress for a usurer — a position she regards with scorn. She ultimately regrets her decision, for not only does she feel humiliated by it, the consequences bring on poverty as well as personal degradation. Ogai describes the internal turmoil well:
“She knew she had degraded herself to the lowest limits, yet she had still sought a kind of spiritual comfort in the unselfishness of her choice.”
Upon learning that her new husband is an usurer, Otama becomes overwhelmed with turmoil, and yet when she wishes to inform her father of her situation, she declines, for she does not want to spoil any of his happiness. She views any sort of bad news as a kind of poison, and “she didn’t want to pour a drop of poison into the sake cup he [her father] held in his hand.”
Interestingly, Otama finally begins to feel her independence for the first time when she chooses to hold her sadness in, showing that even misery can be a possession. It is, after all, her misery. Just as the narrator notes: “Resignation was the mental attitude she had most experienced. And in this direction her mind adjusted itself like a well-oiled machine.”
The reference to The Wild Geese in the title refers to her desire for a life without restriction. Ironically, much of the restriction that befalls her is not only due to the era in which she lives, but her own actions. By not wanting to ruin her father’s happiness, she ultimately ends up destroying her own.
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