A study on “separation” in Nankichi Niimi’s children’s story with a focus on teenage story and folk story

• Main Authors: Yung-Lien Hsiao, 蕭湧蓮
• Other Authors: Tsui-Hua Wu
• Format: Others
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/11944405950516158634

碩士 === 元智大學 === 應用外語學系 === 103 === Nakichi Niimi is famous for his work “Gon, the Little Fox” and “Grandpa’s Lamp.” There is existing research work comparing Nankichi to Kenji Miyazawa, and, more specifically, the topics of sadness and tragedy in his work are also often researched. Mitsutoshi Obigane had divided Nankichi’s children’s stories into five periods according to his life changes and defined seven categories of works according to the stories’ contents. In this study, we used Obigane’s classification to analyze 24 teenage stories and 12 folk stories. In teenage stories and folk stories, we found many embodiments of “separation”, such as changes in a relationship or mental state. Therefore, in this study, we start from the viewpoint of “separation” to proceed with the research. Based on this viewpoint, we narrowed down the scope of this research to 16 teenage stories and 8 folk stories. As for the method utilized in this research, first of all, we classify the “separations” in the stories based on the characters, the situations before and after the incidents, and the mind-changing of the characters. Then, we determine four kinds of “separation”, as follows: spatial separation, separation of heart, separation of the past, and separation of lives. Next, we introduce the stories and investigate what makes the characters’ minds change in these two kinds of stories. To do so, we analyze not only the incidents occurring in the stories, but also how Nankichi describes the feelings and the mind- changing of the characters when they face “separations.”