Stimulating the Law through Ubuntu and Nagomi in Three Japanese Short Stories

Abstract Critical engagement with and intersections of Japanese and African literatures are burgeoning. In pre-colonial African society, a lawful action was that action that took into consideration the common good expressed in the spirit of Ubuntu. Interestingly, Japanese literature and African literature share this universal character in common. Ubuntu intersects with the Japanese philosophy of Nagomi which emphasises harmony and balance thereby creating a nexus of transcultural hybridity. This paper examines Ubuntu and Nagomi as transcultural motifs in stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Nagai Kafu, and Uno Koji in Akutagawa and Others: Three Japanese Short Stories to highlight ideological and law-oriented similarities. Carl Jung’s Persona-Archetype is privileged in this study because it accounts for the recurring images of Ubuntu and Nagomi in the public life of the characters. These cultural images help them to mitigate defiant conducts which violate the fundamental human rights and life purpose of other characters. In Nagai Kafu’s “Behind the Prison”, the motif of physical and psychological imprisonment is eye-catching as the narrator writes His Excellency expressing his frustration at the awful state of things in his Japanese society. Uno Koji’s “Closet LLB” interrogates the imperatives of choice and identity while Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s “General Kim” is a story based on the history of Japan and its neighbour, Korea. In the stories, the protagonists and other characters act heroically in ways that evince the tenets of Ubuntu and Nagomi. Their heroic actions allay the fears of their vulnerable compatriots and protect their fundamental human rights.