No Longer Human (人間失格): Analysis

 

'No Longer Human' looks at the life of a 'failed' human being, the narrator, Ōba Yōzō. Yōzō spends his days in extreme internal turmoil. His only flaw is that he cannot understand humans. Through three notebooks, the readers explore Yōzō's incredible feeling of otherness, separating him from the rest of the human race.

Instead of truly feeling, he mimics humanity, turning into society's perception of an ideal, in the form of the class clown in the first notebook. He becomes obsessed with putting up a facade so intricate that the others truly believe in his acts of simple buffoonery and rambunctiousness. So much so, that his fear becomes the fear of being discovered and stripped down to his raw self.

The novel can be considered somewhat autobiographical as the author, Osamu Dazai, committed suicide soon after its publication, therefore shedding light on the inner workings of his mind.

Yōzō's deep-rooted contempt for humanity is driven by his own insecurities, rather than actively being angry at humanity for his feelings of otherness. The protagonist's characteristics, notably fear of being discovered, anxiety about the same, and dread at his own, undeniable otherness, also become the story's focal points.

The story's attempt at capturing what it means to be human succeeds with the narrator being someone so cynical and isolated. Capturing true human feelings, and at the same time not, proves that the individual will always be an outsider and that the society around it, instead, becomes truly 'human'.

Humans have always been social animals, bent on the survival of the individual through the survival of the group. So when an individual becomes isolated, they become crippled with feelings of loneliness and otherness. Much like the narrator, if other individuals realized this and attained true consciousness, they too would feel the incredible feeling of lacking something.

The story draws on this theme through the topic of Communism. Meaning a social organization in which all property is owned by the community and the individual contributes and receives only under certain conditions. Much like the true nature of human existence, as hinted in the story, communism puts the needs of the many over the needs of the few, or in this case, the individual.

Yōzō feels disconnected wherever he goes. As readers, we have to realize that Yōzō has become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He views himself through the eyes of society itself. For him, what society considers an ideal, becomes his goal. To portray himself as an ideal. Through the second, and primarily the third, notebook, this view of himself begins to deteriorate. The people he interacts with, especially Horiki, skew his self-perception and perception of the world around him to such an extent that he begins to imbibe all the negative aspects of society he sees around him.

It is then that he begins drinking, smoking, and even harlotry before he attends communist meetings, despite being less than a staunch follower. Later on, he commits adultery by spending the night with a married woman and attempting double suicide (and surviving). He is expelled from Tokyo University. He resumes a normal relationship with a woman, serving as a surrogate father to her daughter but falls prey to the thralls of alcoholism again.

Through his own will, and fear of humanity, he becomes the sole reason for all his wrongdoing and all the choices he makes throughout the novel. He becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As he views society through this new, raw, unfiltered, and overtly pessimistic lens, he becomes the failure that he thinks he is destined to become.

From being society's ideal to becoming what society considers one of the lowest ranks of humans, i.e. the great failure. 

The book contemplates the reason for human nature and includes philosophical theories like Kierkegaard's existentialism to explore the life of one such human being. Perhaps by allowing the narrator to feel detached from humanity, the book can probe into each individual's worst fears, anxieties, and depth or lack of emotion.

Through Yōzō's eyes, the book addresses the inner and outer manifestations of identity. It explores what qualifies and disqualifies a human being from being human. To prevent himself from losing sleep by probing further into the matters he was kept up by when he was a child, Yōzō uses smoking, drinking, and prostitution as a means of escapism. However, he winds back in the same spot because of his innate fear of humanity.

Taking his early life into account, Yōzō felt extremely misunderstood in his family and he was often neglected emotionally. He could never share his experiences with anyone which led to his sorrow over his otherness and his ultimate demise to becoming a great failure. It is directly linked to his feelings of alienation from everybody else, and to some extent himself, as he is unable to get in touch with his emotions.

No matter where he goes, Yōzō's life is his prison, a creation that can be attributed to himself and his surroundings. Through the course of the novel, he becomes more contemplative with layers to his personality. Through his narration, the readers understand that he is neither a human nor a beast. He falls somewhere in between.

However, in this extreme form of introspection, perhaps he is one of the true human beings. Realizing it's only him in the world against the rest, and that, by extension, all human beings are creatures of isolation and loneliness. Only Yōzō is the one who understands his true nature and emotional state well and completely. Each society is made up of people. The herd contains the sheep. 

In the end, we are all born alone and we all die alone. Yōzō was the only one who ever truly realized how true the saying is.