From contemporary Japanese authors, Kenzaburō Oe (1935-2023) stands out for being the second Japanese to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994, 26 years after Yasunari Kawabata. Very different in nature and prose from his colleague, Kenzaburō Ōe left ideas that are still a source of study and inspiration for various authors.
His phrase «Dignity comes from accepting our contradictions» is an example of this. Kenzaburō Ōe was influenced by French and American literatureand his novels address political, social and philosophical issues. But it was his strongest personal experience that marked him to write.
His son Hikari was born with a deformity that, at the time they had to intervene, the operation produced a irreversible brain disability which caused a crisis for the author. That personal shock ended up becoming the heart of much of his literature.
His second novel «A personal matter» (1964) is the author’s most famous and one of his most notable literary works, inspired by the Hydrocephalus problem of his first-born son, who also suffered from autism spectrum disorders.
It shows his own fears and obsessions, later delved into in his later titles such as «The waters have invaded my soul» (1973) o «Awake, oh young people of the new age!«.
But his work was not limited to the personal experiences linked to his son, but a large part of it was crossed by the consequences of World War II and atomic bombs.
If Kawabata explored beauty from a melancholic and poetic perspective and Yukio Mishima linked it to death and intensity, Ōe turned his attention to other questions about deep issues.
Some of what was done in his work were how to live with suffering and what it means to be responsible for another person. The tragic tone of his reflections only highlights the imperfection of the world. It is a deep reflection on the feelings of human beings.
For this reason, the phrase attributed to him, or associated with his thought, «Dignity is born from accepting our contradictions» can be interpreted as an invitation to accept the complexity of the human condition itself.
Give everything you have, but knowing that you are finite, with imperfections, doubts, fears and that many times they act without knowing exactly what they are doing not even if it comes to fruition.
The idea can also be read as a criticism of the permanent search for perfection, especially at a time when many people try show an ideal image of themselves on Social Networks. Ōe proposed something different: recognize one’s own limitations and learn to live with them.
It doesn’t mean that the phrase is something self-help, but rather that contains a philosophical dimensionindicating that dignity is something that appears when accepting part of who we are. It is not a reward for a perfect life, but rather an attitude towards one’s own weaknesses.
