The Narrow Road To The Deep North Character Analysis

Throughout Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North the ideas of expectation and what it means to be a hero are examined through Flanagan’s blending of history and fiction from a modern perspective that I can gain insight into how society and others shape and define us. Through the novel the reader presented with two distinct and contrasting characters of Dorrigo Evans and Tenji Nakamura. While differing in actions and beliefs, both characters highlight the societal paradigm of their respective cultures and show how through others people within society come to fulfil their expectations, even if these expectations are something, which oppose our own personal values and expectations. It is through Flanagan’s construction of his text

There were many other soldiers who did similar or greater things than Dorrigo, “mildly disdained and possibly envied by the many other doctors who had done similar things in other POW camps”, (Flanagan, “The Narrow Road”, pp) yet it is Dorrigo who is lauded as a hero. This position of a hero all stems from the documentary made of him “A documentary about Dorrigo going back to the Line on Anzac Day in 1972 first established him in the national consciousness…which he affected the stance of a conservative humanist, another mask”, (Flanagan, “The Narrow Road”, pp) due to the documentary placing him into a position of importance, Dorrigo is again forced to conform to the expectations of society in being a good man, but he is anything but what the media and society portrays him as. In an interview after the novel was released Flanagan said, “When people wish to believe that we are good that we 're capable of greatness, that ordinary people can become that great person”, (Flanagan, “Richard Flanagan’s”) this highlights the position in which Dorrigo was thrust during and after the war, he is an ordinary man, a flawed man but through others he achieves greatness. Dorrigo’s character of the doctor and leader

Nakamura believes himself to be good and honourable; he does not relish in pain but accepts with as a necessary component of his devotion to his country and emperor. However Flanagan does not solely represent the Japanese in this light of brutality, rather he shows how the Japanese are more than vindictive and evil men. This is achieved through the emphasis Flanagan places on the works of Matsuo Bashō, a 17th Century Japanese poet. If as Dorrigo believes, “A great book compels you to reread your own soul”, (Flanagan, “The Narrow Road”, pp) then all literature likewise has great power for introspection and in this way it reminds the reader of the importance of literature in examining one’s self. This illustrates how the Japanese too have higher orders of understanding just like other western cultures, thus humanising the Nakamura and the other Japanese soldiers. Flanagan’s use of Bashō’s poetry and the title of one of Bashō’s works Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) as the title of his novel highlights from the outset that the Japanese story is something that is just as important as the story of the Australians and Dorrigo. For the cruelty of the Japanese is not something which is inherent of the