Existentialism In Abe Kobo's 'Woman In The Dunes'

Abe Kōbō lived a very interesting and harsh life. Kōbō was raised in Manchuria, a place that, at the time was controlled by Japan. As a Japanese living in Manchuria, he wasn’t well received in that community, despite his father being a doctor. He later moved back to Japan to study medicine. While he received his degree, he never practiced medicine. Instead he became a street vendor to make ends meet. It was during his vending years that he starting writing. After winning a few awards for his writings, he became a screenwriter. Kōbō became a very influential wring figure for post-WW2 in Japan. His work, the Woman in the Dunes, is the most influential of his works. It even earned a Kōbō a film adaption of said book. In this book, Abe Kobo uses nihilistic and existentialist ideas to highlight isolation and life 's meaning in mankind.

Niki is a school teacher and an amuerture entomologist. One day Junpei goes out in an area filled with sand in order to find beetles that could live there. In the dunes, he comes across a village. The villagers offer him a stay in one of their houses. The house he stays in is located at the bottom of a funnel of sand, and the only way out of the funnel is a makeshift ladder. After spending a night in a widows hut, he finds that the rope is gone. The villagers then force Junpei to help the woman shovel sand, the sand that will destroy the village if left unshoveled. Junpei tries everything he can think of to escape the village, all to no avail. At the end of the book, Junpei is given the chance to escape, yet he doesn’t leave. This ending is very peculiar because the Junpei has spent the entirety of the book trying to