No Longer Human Summary

Oba Yozo's lifelong battles with alienation, abuse, and self-acceptance are explored in Osamu Dazai's I-novel No Longer Human.

• Horiki, a sensualist whom Yozo meets in college, introduces him to the pleasures of the outside world.
• When Yozo and Tsuneko spend the night together, they make a suicide pact from which only Yozo survives.
• Yozo, expelled from college, moves to a pub in Kyobashi, where he meets Yoshiko, a young woman who encourages his sobriety.
• Yoshiko is sexually assaulted shortly after Yoozo's relapse, and they get married.
• As Yozo's addiction increases, he moves to the countryside after being released from a psychiatric hospital.

Characters List

In No Longer Human, Oba Yozo, Father, Takeichi, Masao Horiki, Tsuneko, and Yoshiko are the most important protagonists.

1. Yozo Oba

An ambitious artist named Oba Yozo has been abused by his father and feels separated from other people.

2. Father

Father is violent and does not encourage Yozo's desire to pursue art.

3. Takeichi

Yozo and Takeichi are friends from high school and share an affection for Western art.

4. Masao Horiki

Yozo is introduced to more worldly interests by a buddy named Masao Horiki, who holds Yozo responsible for Tsuneko's passing.

5. Tsuneko

As a result of their shared suffering, Tsuneko and Yozo eventually agree to commit suicide.

6. Yoshiko

Yoshiko, a girl Yozo marries, is seventeen years old.

Summary

In the novel No Longer Human, Oba Yozo, a depressed young man who has experienced sexual assault, poverty, addiction, and suicide, feels unfavorably distinguished from other people. The tale is bookended by an unknown narrator who only knows Yozo through images and journals. The narrator makes a statement in the prologue about Yozo's horrifyingly empty experiences in the pictures.

Yozo's self-perception as a youngster is that he is unique from those around him. He acknowledges that he has never experienced hunger and needs clarification on some social actions. Yozo feels scared by other people because he believes he cannot correctly understand even the most simple desires of people. To facilitate his relationships with others, he creates a comic character.

He and his siblings gather in the parlor the night before his father's regularly scheduled visit to Tokyo. The father asks the children what gifts they would like and notes their responses in a notebook. Yozo cannot respond since he has nothing to desire and refuses to disappoint his father. His father recommends a lion dance mask, but his tolerance and good humor soon fade when Yozo responds with silence.

Fearing his father's anger, Yozo looks for his father's notebook in the middle of the night to write a final message and cheer up his father. Despite being comical in public, Yozo reveals his true nature is the opposite of comic. He makes it quite clear that the maids and manservants are sexually assaulting him, but he doesn't think that advising anybody will change anything.

Takeichi, a high school student, claims that one of Yozo's comic pratfalls is a purposeful blunder. Yozo tries to get along with Takeichi because of concern that he'll expose him as a fraud. Yozo successfully drags Takeichi to his residence on a rainy day. Yozo treats Takeichi's ear infections from the rain. Takeichi uncomfortably praises Yozo, assuring him that many girls will be attracted to him.

Takeichi delivers a replica of a van Gogh self-portrait, referring to it as "the picture of a ghost." Yozo shows Takeichi a book of Modigliani reproductions out of curiosity, and Takeichi is delighted. Yozo realizes that by being honest, art may portray people's dark and wounded sides. He starts creating several self-portraits, which he only reveals to Takeichi, who declares that Yozo will become a renowned painter one day.

Despite Yozo's desire to attend art school, his father enrolled him in a Tokyo college where he would receive training to become a government servant. Yozo frequently decides to skip class to read, paint, or attend an art class in Hongo. Horiki, a sensualist he meets in art class, introduces Yozo to the love of alcohol, cigarettes, and prostitutes. He also pulls Yozo to a covert communist meeting, which Yozo begins frequently attending since he likes the vibe there. His father sells the house when Yozo's stay in Tokyo has ended. After being moved to a lodging facility, Yozo learns he needs help to handle his money. He turns to pawn shops and letters begging, but the money still vanishes without a trace. The school subsequently informs Yozo's father of his absence.

At this time, he encounters Tsuneko, a hostess, at a Ginza cafe. She brings Yozo to her house after treating him with alcohol and poor food. Tsuneko's apparent suffering moves Yozo, and they spend a fantastic night together. But Yozo leaves Tsuneko because he is uneasy about the prospect of "great joys." A month later, he comes to the cafe with Horiki, a drunken freeloader. Horiki initially intends to kiss Tsuneko but is turned off by her pitiful appearance upon a closer look. Yozo becomes stirred by pity for Tsuneko and consumes alcohol till he passes out. He raises the following day in Tsuneko's room, where Tsuneko suggests a double suicide. Yozo smiles quickly.

They all jump into the water simultaneously, but only Yozo makes it back alive. His family is furious over Yozo's suicide attempt, but Yozo is only focused on Tsuneko. He gets questioned by the police after being released from the hospital. To assure him, he calls his father's subordinate, a man he calls Flatfish. He poses as coughing up blood as they take him to the district attorney for a checkup. The district attorney recognizes Yozo's deception and causes Yozo to remember Takeichi. Yozo feels embarrassed by his shame.

After being dismissed from college, Yozo relocates to Flatfish's house, where he cannot leave. Yozo responds that he wants to be a painter when Flatfish asks what he wants to do. The following morning, Yozo flees to Horiki's house, where he is met with hostility. There he meets Shizuko, a widow who hires Yozo as a cartoonist and lets him live with her and her children. He finally leaves Shizuko due to his deteriorating sadness.

He meets the young virgin Yoshiko in a cigarette shop, and she persuades him to stop drinking. They get married and have a brief home paradise. Horiki's visits, which encourage Yozo to relapse into drunkenness, soon end their joy. Horiki and Yozo see Yoshiko being sexually raped by a friend one night while they engage in a game of classifying nouns as "comic" or "tragic." The tragedy reduces Yoshiko to a fearful and timid wreck. Finally, Yozo consumes a package of sleeping pills and is taken to the hospital. After being released, his failing health motivates him to look for a pharmacy, where he buys some drugs and morphine.

Although he is told morphine is not as bad as alcohol, he soon becomes hopelessly addicted. Due to his dependability, his debt increases, and he is forced to beg for other morphine dosages. He writes to his father for support with his addiction after deciding he can't take it anymore. Instead, Flatfish and Horiki come to see him and check him into a psychiatric hospital. Yozo learns his father has died after being released from the hospital. He relocates to the countryside to recover while being looked after by an older woman his brother has hired.

The same anonymous character who described the pictures of Yozo in the prologue also provides narration for the closing. According to the narrator, while traveling to see an old buddy, he met an old friend?the madam of a bar in Kyobashi that he had gone to before the war. The madam provided the narrator with the journals and pictures Yozo had sent her even though he had never seen the artist. The next day, the narrator asked to borrow the notebooks he had been reading all night. The madam nodded in agreement when the narrator questioned whether crying while reading Yozo's journals. She retorted that they hadn't and that she had only assumed that humans were useless because of how Yozo had ended. However, she thinks Yozo is a wonderful guy.

No Longer Human Themes

Crime and punishment, the self and society, and fathers and sons are the main themes of No Longer Human.

1. Crime and Punishment

Yoshiko, Yozo's wife, is sexually assaulted by one of their acquaintances, and Yozo oddly thinks the perpetrator is unimportant. Instead, he considers whether Yoshiko is at fault and whether he still has the authority to condemn her. His behavior has a misogynistic component, but Yozo ultimately takes responsibility for his actions and does not even place the blame on Yoshiko.

This experience illustrates the actual basis of Yozo's enduring fixation with shame and guilt. Because he had the opportunity to halt the assault in this specific case but chose not to, Yozo feels terrible. As he puts it, he is "without authority" or "a mask of anger," he is aware that this is the outcome of a personal defect. As a result, he feels humiliated. But readers might infer that because he has been struggling with guilt and humiliation since childhood, his reactions to the assault are probably similar to how he formerly felt about his abuse. He asks god, "Is non-resistance a sin?" yet it's clear that he's talking more about himself than Yoshiko.

Consequently, Yozo's guilt and shame are also responsible for his obsession with retribution. This concern may be easily viewed as Yozo's attempt to compensate for the hurt he has done to others. Interestingly, there isn't any punishment in the book?not only for Yozo but also for the bad guys surrounding him.

Yozo wonders about the antonym of the word "crime" and comes up with "punishment." He contends that crime is not opposed to the law or the police.

However, crime and actual punishment may be mutually exclusive. Although the story features crime, the law, and the police, there are no penalties. If a crime is synonymous with punishment, what is it then? If a crime is something the perpetrator is unaware of, but the victim is (as Yozo blames himself and Yoshiko even though they were sexually assaulted). Perhaps a punishment would prove the victim's innocence by making the perpetrator aware of the seriousness of their crime.

When Yozo discusses his trust in god, he mentions his punishment as something he believes in. It might be interpreted as a sincere prayer beyond a desire for revenge. Theoretically, seeing some confirmation that anything terrible had been done may help Yozo feel less guilty and ashamed. After all, he claims to get comfort and a pleasant sense while under arrest at the police station.

2. The Self and Society

Dazai's use of the symbolism of the face to explore self and society is particularly effective. In the book's introduction, the narrator reflects on the mysterious characteristics of Yozo's face, which are forgettable and fail to convey the face of a human being. On the one hand, this part supports Yozo's belief that he is a terrible creature that is somehow born without the ability to interact with others or be a person. On the other hand, this picture also points to a different explanation, which is the actual tragedy: Yozo has not fallen short of being a human being but rather has fallen short of being acknowledged. Therefore, in essence, the loss or deformation of the face is taking away one's dignity as the face is a sign of both social and moral dignity (also used in idioms like "to save face" or "to be unable to show one's face"). It is to go through humiliation, guilt, and abuse.

The face is also the mask of the person that mediates all social relationships; the description of Yozo's ugly face serves as a metaphor for his social shortcomings. He is unable to empathize or accept the possibility of human love. Additionally, he cannot establish his identity or personality with others.

Despite the absence and deformation of his face, Yozo does not lose all hope. He takes comfort in the distorted appearances of Vincent van Gogh and Amedeo Modigliani's paintings, faces of what he refers to as "ghosts," or persons whose moral presence appears to have disappeared completely. He has an insight after seeing these paintings that, in his words, "after repeated wounds and intimidations at the hands of... human beings... depict these monsters just as they had appeared." For a while, Yozo paints, concentrating on self-portraits. He discovers a means to reclaim his lost face, if only for a moment.

3. Fathers and Sons

Throughout the narrative, Yozo's father maintains an unnoticeable but constant presence. Curiously, Yozo cannot mention or even indicate anything that may have transpired between them in the past. He only refers to one interaction with his father during his upbringing and does not discuss other occasions. Instead, the reader is forced to infer the likely circumstances from Yozo's emotions alone. Yozo's excessively wary demeanor around others resembles his wary responses to his father. He portrays a concern that those around him would explode into violence?that they are ready to strike out at any moment.

Yozo is convinced that he was born with a socio-moral defect, that god does not care about boys disrespecting their dads, and that everyone's anger at him is justified. The bar owner in Kyobashi suggests that Yozo's father is to blame for Yozo's drinking at the book's conclusion. Whether or not this is true, it is difficult to dispute that Yozo's father significantly impacted the formation of Yozo's personality and his opinions about other people and himself.

Conclusion

The novel No Longer Human by Shuji Tsushima examines several issues that, when taken as a whole, create a single thesis for the tale of the lead character, Yozo. The nihilist aspect of existentialism is examined in the book, and one may categorize Tsushima's book as an existentialist work similar to those of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. The events in the novella are closely based on the author's experiences, making the book itself heavily autobiographical. Alienation figures prominently in the book as one of its central topics. The person and the society he lives in are engaged in an ongoing conflict.

Yozo discovers that individuals are dishonest and deceptive at an early age. For instance, his father's acquaintances think the political gathering his father arranged is ridiculous. They say this behind his father's back, yet they praise him for the meeting in front of him. Yozo's creative works likewise feature this notion of duality. He produces stunning works of art for the enjoyment of others but caricatures of himself for his entertainment. The novel shows the contrast between the public and the private worlds. The duality of an outside and interior self emphasizes the idea of separation from humankind.