A Personal Matter
by Kenzaburō Ōe
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At a glance:
- Author: Kenzaburō Ōe
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Work: Realism
- Time of Work: The 1960’s
- Setting: An unnamed Japanese city
- Characters: Bird, Bird’s Wife, Bird’s father-in-law, Bird’s mother-in-law, Kikuhiko, Himiko
- Genres: Long fiction, Realism, Novel
- Subjects: 1960's, Self-discovery, Parents and children, Duty, Infants, Disabilities or physically challenged persons, Fate or fatalism, Japan or Japanese people
- Locales: Asia, Japan
The Novel
A Personal Matter tells the story of a conflict between duty and desire. At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist, who is known to the reader only by his childhood name, Bird, is waiting for his wife to produce their first child. Bird is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of fatherhood. He fears that it will interfere with the realization of his dream, to travel throughout Africa in order to test his courage and, more practically, to enable him to gather material for a book.
Unfortunately, when the baby is born, it is defective....
(The entire page is 1808 words.)
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