The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume | Issue | Article ID 3764 | Dec 31, 1969

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Environmental Ambiguity, Literature, and Ishimure Michiko　環境問題の曖昧さ、文学、石牟道子

Karen Thornber

Env i ronmenta l Ambigu i t y ,Literature, and Ishimure Michiko

Karen Thornber

“We’d like to cut down the trees with nature inmind.” So declared Suzuki Takehiko, director ofthe Shōsenkyō Kankō Kyōkai (Shōsen GorgeTourism Association), in August 2008. Part ofJapan’s Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park,Shōsen Gorge has for decades been labeled thecountry’s “most beautiful valley.” Years ofdeforesting meant that when the park wasfounded in 1950, little stood between touristsand the majestic rock formations for which thegorge is most famous. But by the turn of thetwenty-first century visitors were frustratedthat trees were now blocking much of the view.The park’s laissez-faire approach to the valley’sv e g e t a t i o n d i d n o t t h r e a t e n i t secosystems—trees are hardly invasive speciesthere. But this economically disadvantaged partof Japan depended on a steady stream oftourists who wanted to see cliffs, not trees;some even claimed that the trees weredepriving the valley of its beauty. So Suzukiargued that “trees” (part of nature) should befelled so that people could have a better view of“nature” (the gorge). Despite Suzuki’s appeal,most of the trees still stand and in fact arehighlighted in the park’s promotional materials.The Shōsen Gorge Tourism Association’swebsite features images of colorful treesgrowing beside, and out of, majestic crags; insome pictures trees effectively obscure thecliffs. A banner running near the top of thewebsite declares Shōsen Gorge the most

beautiful in Japan, full of the [many] wonders ofnature (Nihon ichi no keikokubi o hokoru“Shōsenkyō” wa shizen no subarashisa ga ippaidesu).1

Ōtaki in Shōsen Gorge

This episode encapsulates what my new bookEcoambiguity: Environmental Crises and EastAsian Literatures (Michigan 2012) identifies as

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environmental ambiguity (ecoambiguity), thecomplex, contradictory interactions betweenpeople and nature. Many parks, althoughestablished at least in part to protectecosystems from human abuse, ultimatelydepend on the human footprint for theirexistence; areas that do not attract visitors riskbeing developed. Likewise, calls to destroy onepart of an ecosystem frequently stem from thedesire to protect another; deer populations, forinstance, are regularly culled so that vegetationcan be restored. But the ambiguity of people’srelationships with Shōsen Gorge is particularlypronounced. The original requests fordeforestation stemmed from the desire not tosave but instead to see another segment of thelandscape; some tourists wanted the treesremoved not so the cliffs could be protected butso they could be photographed. Their calls havegone relatively unheeded; trees remain part ofthe appeal, their foliage, particularly inautumn, a highlight of visits to Shōsen Gorge.

Many parts of Japan have not been sofortunate. While some of East Asia’senvironmental problems have clearly beenameliorated as a result of increased ecologicalconsciousness in the region, others have grownmore menacing. In this sense East Asia is nodifferent from most other world regions. Fewplaces celebrate ecological destruction, insteadgiving lip service to “greening” environments,but many promote lifestyles that virtuallyensure devastation. Today, the separationbetween practice and environmental protectionrhetoric exists practically everywhere; thedivergence is so ingrained it can be taken forgranted.

East Asian l iteratures are famous forcelebrating the beauties of nature anddepicting people as intimately connected withthe natural world. But in fact, much fiction andpoetry in the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreanlanguages portrays people as damagingeverything from small woodlands to the entireplanet. These texts seldom talk about

environmental crises straightforwardly. Instead, like much creative writing ondegraded ecosystems, they highlightenvironmental ambiguities.

As I discuss in Ecoambiguity, an excellentexample is the acclaimed Japanese activist andwriter Ishimure Michiko’s novel on Minamatadisease – Kugai jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō (Seaof Suffering and the Pure Land: Our MinamataDisease, 1969), which incorporates twoprincipal forms of environmental ambiguity.2

The first is conflicts in attitudes: on the onehand idealizing symbiotic, mutually beneficialcontacts between people and nature while onthe other hand expressing concern about thehealth of nature primarily because peopledepend on it; the second is contradictionsbetween behaviors and obvious physicalevidence, especially the disavowals of pollution(including both active denials and consciousindifference) on the part of many in theJapanese government, the Chisso Corporation(whose mercury effluent in Minamata Baycaused the disease), and residents of Minamataand surrounding towns. Threats to theenvironment including global warming,destruction of habitat, and species extinctionare even acuter now than when Ishimure wroteher classic work, making it all the moreimperative that we confront directly thedifficult issues that cut to the heart of the waysin which we live and work and how we thinkabout and actually relate to the environment.

In the paragraphs that follow I’ll overviewEcoambiguity and discuss briefly theimportance of literature on environmentalcrises. I’ll then explore manifestations ofecoambiguity in Ishimure’s Sea of Suffering.

In i t i a l l y I had p lanned to o rgan i zeEcoambiguity around comparisons of Chinese,Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese literarytreatments of major environmental problems.After all, we expect area specialists andespecially comparatists to highlight cultural,

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nat ional , and regional d i f ferences .Separateness often is assumed to be moreprevalent, and important, than similarity, not tomention commonality. But the more I read, themore it became apparent that something quitedifferent was at stake. Throughout historypeople have routinely damaged both proximateand distant landscapes, despite vast differencesin cultures, attitudes toward nature, and theresilience of the ecosystems they inhabit. Environmental damage has varied greatly, yetthere are few if any places that have not beenharmed by the human footprint, literal ormetaphorical. I soon realized that it wasimportant, indeed imperative, to analyze howliterature as a form of discourse deals with thecauses and consequences of ecodegradationwrit large. Once I no longer looked at textsprimarily through the lenses of individualsocieties or environmental problems, butinstead examined how creative works fromdisparate places negotiated more generallywith ecological quandaries, their sharede n v i r o n m e n t a l a m b i g u i t y b e c a m eunambiguously clear. The authorial, readerly,c u l t u r a l , a n d e n v i r o n m e n t a lcircumstances/identities behind the productionof a particular text certainly mattered –including assumptions about target audience,as well as institutional control of literaryproduction such as censorship practices – butnot as much as I had presumed. Environmentalambiguity is a hallmark of everything frombrief poems to multivolume novels; from thework of writers known globally to thosescarcely recognized within their own societies;from texts discussing relatively isolatedecological damage to those concerned with ruinon a global scale; from those focusing onenvironmental distress, including ecological lifenarratives, to those mentioning it only briefly;from works that celebrate ecodegradation tothose that decry it; in texts publishedeverywhere from the Americas to Europe,Africa, Asia, and Australia.

To be sure, ecoambiguity appears more

prevalent in literature from East Asia than inother textual corpuses. And its irony iscertainly deeper, considering the region’s longcultural history celebrating the intimate tiesbetween humans and nature even as its peoplesseverely damaged environments. But withseveral notable exceptions, these disjunctionsand their many permutations do not depend asmuch on speci f ic l i terary cul ture orenvironmental problem as one mightanticipate. And so I moved the focus to theconcept of environmental ambiguity itself.Languages, genres, styles, and tropes differwithin and across cultures, but the concernsraised have much in common.

In addition, although I had first thought offocusing on a few key writers and texts – mostnotably Ishimure Michiko from Japan, GaoXingjian and Jiang Rong from China, and Ko Ŭnfrom Korea – the more I read and was exposedto the incredible variety and richness of EastAsian creative negotiations with environmentalproblems, the more it became vital to counterthe common perception that, with severalprominent exceptions, East Asian literaturesdescribe only harmonious human-nonhumanrelationships. Examining a wide range ofChinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanesetexts that address ecodegradation makes usmore aware of the many ways differentsocieties have grappled with phenomena thatare grounded in their specific cultures andhistories but that also resonate with those ofother places and peoples and have widespreadregional if not global implications. It isimportant to consider the particular ways thatecological problems are negotiated in nationalliteratures, while recognizing the manycommonalities of human relationships with thenonhuman across time and space. This is notat all to deny the importance of context. Rather, it is to acknowledge just how frequentlytexts address – implicitly or explicitly – mattersof regional or global concern. Ecoambiguityhopes to work toward breaking down barriersof isolation, insularity, and exceptionalism,

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reminding us that although human societies,the environments in which they live, and thedilemmas facing different peoples andecosystems are distinctive, they are not unique.

For most communities, limiting furtherecological degradation and remediatingdamaged ecosystems of all sizes will requiresignificant cultural change. Societies need toreconceptualize the actual and the ideal placesof people in ecosystems. Perceptions need to bealigned with actualities, and ideals need to beimplemented. Essential to these endeavors isdeve l op ing deeper , more nuancedunderstandings of the fluid relationships bothamong peoples and between peoples andenvironments in specific places and moments,as well as over time and across space. Writing,reading, and analyzing literature – openlyimaginative texts with clear aesthetic ambitions– can perform important roles in thisundertaking. Literature has the power to moveus profoundly as it exposes how peopledominate, damage, and destroy one anotherand the natural world. It also allows us toimagine alternative scenarios. As the acclaimedenvironmental critic Lawrence Buell hasargued, “For technological breakthroughs,legislative reforms, and paper covenants aboutenvironmental welfare to take effect, or even tobe generated in the first place, requires aclimate of transformed environmental values,perception, and will. To that end, the power ofstory, image, and artistic performance and theresources of aesthetics, ethics, and culturaltheory are crucial."3

Literature’s regular and often blatant defianceof logic, precision, and unity enables it tograpple more insistently and penetratingly thanmany other discourses with ambiguities ingeneral and with those ar is ing frominteractions among people and ecosystems inparticular. More specifically, literature’sintrinsic multivalence allows it to highlight andnegotiate – reveal, (re)interpret, andshape—the ambiguity that has long suffused

interactions between people and environments,including those interactions that involve humandamage to ecosystems. Ambiguity hereemerges not primarily as an ethical or aestheticvalue but as a symptom of epistemologicaluncertainty that is parsed both sympatheticallyand exactingly as a deficit of consciousnessand/or implicit confession of the impotence ofwriters and literary characters.

Environmental ambiguity manifests itself inmultiple, intertwined ways, includingambivalent attitudes toward nature; confusionabout the actual condition of the nonhuman,often a consequence of ambiguous information;contradictory human behaviors towardecosystems; and discrepancies amongattitudes, conditions, and behaviors that lead toactively downplaying and acquiescing tononhuman degradation, as wel l as toinadvertently harming the very environmentsone is attempting to protect.4

These imbricated forms of ecoambiguity arefundamental attributes of literary works thatdiscuss relationships between people and thenonhuman world, including Ishimure’s Sea ofSuffering.

Ishimure Michiko

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Sea of Suffering is a stirring exposé of theenvironmental tragedy of Minamata disease, ahorrific form of mercury poisoning involvingsevere bra in damage, neuro log ica ldegeneration, physical deformities, numbness,slurred and spontaneous speech, involuntarymovements, unconsciousness, and death. Thenarrator includes accounts of her owninteractions with Minamata patients and theirloved ones and experiences fighting corporateand government bureaucracies that refuse toacknowledge, still less accept responsibility for,their pain and loss. She also incorporatesmoving stories of Minamata patients in theirown voices and those of their families andfriends. In addition, she contextualizes theexperiences of the Minamata villagers,discussing pollution incidents elsewhere inJapan and the world. By incorporating poetry,fictional and nonfictional prose, medical,scientific, and journalistic reports, accounts ofthe rich cultural history of the towns onMinamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, and lyricaldepictions of the region’s landscapes, Sea ofSuffering openly defies narrow definitions ofgenre and, more important, underlines theinterdependence of scientific, social scientific,and humanistic interpretations of theexperienced world. Including local dialectwhenever possible, the narrator accentuatesthe distance of Minamata from Tokyo powercenters.

Ishimure’s novel loops back and forth in time,denying human suffering a beginning and ane n d . D e m o n s t r a t i n g a n e x p l i c i t l yecocosmopolitan consciousness, it also refusessuffering any clear spatial borders. Thenarrator speaks repeatedly of the Ashio coppermine incident and Niigata Minamata disease,the latter of which creates in her mind thevision of a “deep, fissurelike pathway [fukai,kiretsu no yō na tsūro] that with a crackingsound ran the length of the Japanesearchipelago” (218).5 With Minamata located onthe western coast of Kyushu, well north of theJapanese archipelago’s southern tip, and

Niigata on the western coast of Honshu, farsouth of Japan’s northernmost point, thenarrator indicates that the tragedies shared bythese two cities have reverberated well beyondtheir axis; not only does the path (tsūro) ofsuffering join Minamata and Niigata, it alsoextends hundreds of miles farther, toOkinotorishima and Bentenjima, Japan’ssouthernmost and northernmost points. Theword tsūro is significant: it implies a well-established passageway, but one that separateseven as it connects. Not only does it callattention to the fragility of the Japanese islandsthemselves, fragility accentuated by audiblecracking, it also points to the country’s manychasms, particularly between polluters andfishers/farmers, the wealthy and theimpoverished, and the healthy and the infirm,gaps that threaten the stability of Japanesesociety. Sea of Suffering also moves outsideJapan, exposing the Chisso Corporation’scontroversial history in colonial Korea,including its factories in Hŭngnam anddamming of the Yalu River between China andKorea.6 The narrator discusses the plight ofKoreans under Japanese control moregenerally, referencing Korean deaths in theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.In her afterword, Ishimure condemns Chisso’sclandestine attempt in the late 1960s to exportto Korea containers of poisonous mercuryeffluent. Here and elsewhere the novelexplicitly describes Minamata disease ashaving regional if not global implications.

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Minimata, and the Minimata Bay within theShiranui Sea

Taking place in a developmental state, Sea ofSuffering depicts government-sanctionedenvironmental exploitation for economicdevelopment; Chisso’s close ties with thegovernment are part of an industrial policyorganized by private businesses and thenational bureaucracy.7 So, not surprisingly, thenarrator of Sea of Suffering explicitlycondemns state-sanctioned capitalism forencouraging the sacrifice of human life forfinancial gain. She repeatedly censures theunchecked desire for profits that led Chissofirst to dispose of its untreated waste in thewaters surrounding Minamata withoutascertaining that this would not harm localresidents, then to continue doing so even afterthe toxic i ty of i ts emiss ions becameindisputable; she denounces the analogousgreed that for decades enabled the Japanesegovernment to condone Chisso’s actions, inpractice if not always in legislation. Thenarrator also frequently reproaches Chisso andthe Japanese government for failing to admitresponsibility, much less compensate orprovide medical care, for people suffering fromMinamata disease. And she asserts that notonly the government and Chisso are to blame;many living in the long-impoverished Minamataregion were so grateful to the company forimproving their standard of living that they

turned against neighbors who had contractedMinamata disease and refused to acknowledgetheir plight. As the narrator observes:“Minamata disease is becoming more and moreof a taboo topic among the people of Minamata.They think that if they speak of the disease,then the factory will collapse, and if the factorycol lapses, the town of Minamata wil ldisappear” (233). On the other hand, the noveldoes not depict this fear as entirely unfounded.The narrator indicates that some residents ofMinamata and i t s env i rons were soimpoverished before the arrival of Chisso thatthey fled Japan for China and Southeast Asia,where they toiled as laborers and prostitutes.Nonetheless, highlighting both the physicalsuffering and the emotional isolation ofMinamata patients, the narrator and many ofthe characters in Sea of Suffering condemneconomic, political, and social systems thatmake it relatively easy to damage human lives.

The narrator’s and many Minamata residents’deep concerns with human anguish and human-on-human cruelty contrast sharply with theirattitudes toward the natural world. On the onehand, the narrator and most Minamata patientsidealize symbiotic, mutually beneficial contactsbetween people and environments, contactsthat in light of Chisso’s widespread pollutionnow exist mainly as memories or aspirations.On the other hand, these same individuals showconcerns about the health of the nonhumanprimarily because of its direct impact on humanhealth. Moreover, some Minamata patientsexplicitly state their belief that the naturalworld exists for their benefit, to do with as theyplease and to pass down to their progeny. To besure, neither the narrator of Sea of Sufferingnor her characters seem aware of theircontradictory att itudes toward theirsurroundings, not quite grasping theiranthropocentrism. In addition, Sea of Sufferingdoes not explicitly discuss actual or potentialeffects of this type of anthropocentrism (localpeople believing nature exists primarily forhuman consumption) on environments. When

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Sea of Suffering was published, the actualconsequences of these conflicting outlooksappeared minuscule in the areas aroundMinamata; they still do today, more than fourdecades later. But factories, power plants, andcommercial farming, fishing, and whaling arenot the only elements capable of damagingecosystems, and it is important that we step outof our usual comfort zone of blanketcondemnations and commendations alike andthink more closely about how we all relate toenvironments.

The narrator of Sea of Sufferaing celebratesthe harmonious interactions Minamataresidents once enjoyed with their surroundings;the novel’s opening passage depicts the town’secosystems before Chisso’s arrival as healthy,well-integrated places where people, theircultural artifacts, and the nonhuman allflourished. The narrator accentuates thesynchronization of human and nonhuman lifeby portraying them as undulating togetherpeacefully: boats and baskets float on gentlyrippling water, while voices meander throughfoliage. People disrupt the sea, but onlysuperficially; their splashes in open water areinsignificant, while gushing springs enclosed inwells are safe havens for animals. In fact, asthe narrator stresses in the novel’s openingline, nature, in the form of typhoons, is moredisruptive than people:

The village of Yudō surrounds asmall bay where the waves billowonly with the typhoons that comeonce or twice a year.

In Yudō Bay, small boats, sardinebaskets, and the like floated atopgentle ripples that were akin totickling eyelids. Naked childrenplayed there, jumping from boat toboat and splashing in the water.

In the summer, the voices of thosechildren rose through tangerine

groves, oleanders, tall sumacs withcoiled bumps, and stone walls, andcould be heard in the houses.

At the lowest part of the village, atthe base of the terrace right by theboats, there was a large oldwell—the communal washingplace. Small minnows and cute redcrabs played in the shadows of themoss on the stone walls of thelarge four-sided well. This kind ofwell where crabs lived was withouta doubt fed by a pure gushing rockspring of soft-tasting water.

Around here springs gushed evenat the bottom of the sea (8-9).

Speaking first of a human settlement (the townof Yudō) as surrounding a small, peacefulnonhuman body (a bay of the same name), thenhoming in on human cultural artifacts (boats,sardine baskets), followed by people (children)interacting with the larger nonhuman space(Yudō Bay), Sea of Suffering points immediatelyt o t h e w a t e r a s a p e a c e f u l s i t e o fhuman/nonhuman intermingling. Althoughthey take life from the waters, small boats andsardine baskets seem almost to have becomepart of them.

The second sentence indicates that watersgently rise and fall, but not because of humanintrusion; boats float on rather than causeripples. In fact, by following the references tofishing vessels and equipment with mention ofchildren jumping among boats and splashing inthe water, the narrator emphasizes how littleimpact trawling has on the waters of Yudō Bay.Interestingly, even as boats take life fromwater, they also to a certain degree protect thewater from people; some children jump fromboat to boat rather than into the water. Fishingboats and baskets are left behind in the thirdparagraph, as the narrative moves slightlyinland. Here children’s voices rise through

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various nonhuman bodies (plants) and humancultural artifacts (stone walls) and infiltrateother human cultural artifacts (houses) somedistance away – water, air, land, people, humancreations, and flora all are tied together byvoices at play. Even more significant is thescene at the well. The nonhuman home (the bayof the first two paragraphs) and the humanhome (the house of the third paragraph) hereblend into a home integrated in bothcomposition and occupancy. Also noteworthy ishow the stone wall and the house merge intothe stone well. A small body of water, the well,is surrounded by rocks arranged by people andfed by a rock spring; the gathering place ofmoss, marine life, and people, this structurebuilt and used by humans is also a comfortablehome for the nonhuman. In the fifth paragraph,which shares with the fourth a reference togushing springs, the spotlight shifts back to thesea. The narrator’s careful choice andplacement of images in these opening linesreinforce impressions of human/nonhumansymbioses.

Taking the reader back to the well and then outagain into open waters, the next severalparagraphs continue in a similar vein. Thenarrative lens pans out: to Yudō, both town andbay, are added the names of adjacent bodies ofwater, pieces of land, and human settlements.Then suddenly, in the final paragraph of thenovel’s first section, the narrator indicates thatthis region also is home to the greatest numberof Minamata cases. After listing the towns andvillages most affected by the disease, sheconcludes: “The Chisso Corporation’sMinamata factory had its drain in HyakkenHarbor” (9-10). This abrupt turn is one of manyin Sea of Suffering; the narrative constructs ascene of enduring, near perfect harmony onlyto undermine it almost completely bydisplacing fresh, gushing springs that nourisheverything from small wells to the sea withfactory effluent that poisons ecosystems of allkinds.

Besieged in turn by devastated environments,people are both the polluters and the polluted.The narrator later explains, “Organic mercurynever appeared directly in front of people. Itlurked densely where people went through theroutines of daily life – where they fished themullets, caught the octopuses under the clearsky, and angled in the night, surrounded by thenocticulae. It infiltrated deep into the humanbody together with people’s food, their sacredfish” (107). This passage reveals how the veryanimals on which the fishers depended forlivelihood and life, for physical and spiritualfulfillment, now hasten their deaths, economicand corporeal. The narrator emphasizes thatmercury is not an obvious opponent; it does notsimply appear in front of people for them tododge at will. Instead, it first “lurks densely”(bisshiri hisonde ite) in the nonhuman andthen, having been consumed, “infiltrates deepinto people’s bodies” (hitobito no tainai fukakumoguri-itte shimatta no datta). Repeating thecharacter 潜 (hiso(mu); mogu(ru)), thenarrator stresses not only mercury’s stealthyinvasion but also its deep penetration of bothhumans and animals.

Yet this reality, even when recognized, does notdampen local people’s deep emotionalattachments to poisoned waters and animals.For instance, as Yuki, one of the patients,exclaims: “Is there anything more beautifulthan fish? . . . I believe the Palace of theDragon King [ryūgū] really does exist on thebottom of the sea. I’m sure it’s as beautiful as adream. I just can’t get enough of the sea . . . Ilong to go out to sea again, just one more time”(123). By evoking the Palace of the DragonKing (i.e., the palace of the sea god), a frequentpresence in myths and legends including thatof the fisherman Urashima Tarō, whose rewardfor rescuing a turtle is a visit to this magicalplace, the narrator points to a more innocenttime, however constructed. Also noteworthy isher conviction that despite what has happenedto Minamata’s ecosystems, not everything hasbeen destroyed; great splendor is still to be

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found, albeit far from Minamata. Askingrhetorically if there is anything more beautifulthan fish, Yuki underscores her wonder for thenatural world; she implies that even themagnificent, imagined Palace of the DragonKing is not as glorious as these aquaticanimals. The sea that houses fish (in actuality)and palaces (at least in the imagination) pullsat her ever more insistently.

Shiranui sea scene

The nonhuman continues to entrance theresidents of Minamata, but for the most partSea of Suffering portrays it as discussed – bygovernment and corporate officials, scientists,journalists, teachers, activists, fishers,Minamata patients, and the narrator alike –primarily in terms of its service to people,whether as a vital source of human physicaland spiritual nurture or as a convenient spacefor dumping waste. Clearly, concern for humansuffering trumps concern for nonhumansuffering. People are alarmed by the mercurylevels in fish primarily because they depend onfish for nourishment. Likewise, people growworried when confronted by cats with visiblesymptoms of Minamata disease mainly becausethey fear the fate of the cats might soon betheir own; for their part, scientists study catsprecise ly because they bel ieve thatunderstanding the suffering of these animalswill provide insight into human distress. Few

passages in Sea of Suffering decry or evenmention animal suffering without immediatelylinking it to human trauma.8

These priorities are to be expected consideringthe severe human anguish caused directly bycontaminated fish and prefigured by cats;human and nonhuman suffering are intimatelyconnected. Likewise, violence by peopleagainst people is a central part of theMinamata story, one that, as the hybrid andwhirling narrative structure of Ishimure’s novelsuggests, needs to be continuously repeated inwords, lest it be repeated in behaviors evenmore frequently than it already is. But thosecharacters in Sea of Suffering who believenonhuman suffering worth consideringregularly suggest that this is because of itsdirect connection with human distress.

Such privileging of human suffering raisesseveral important questions. How severelymust animals, plants, and other elements of thenonhuman damaged by people in turn harmpeople before people are moved to remediateand prevent fur ther devas ta t ion o fenvironments? To what extent are amelioratingand foiling destruction of environments deemedimportant only when human health is clearly atstake? Ishimure’s novel emphasizes that, in thecase of Minamata disease, the people whobecome concerned about or even protestecodegradation nearly always have little tolose. This includes those who have alreadybecome ill (Minamata patients) or even moredeeply impoverished (fishers with nothing tocatch) as well as concerned outsiders(journalists, intellectuals, artists) whochampion causes without making significantpersonal sacrifices. Sea of Suffering contraststhese two groups with those threatened byeconomic catastrophe: Chisso, the Japanesegovernment, and the many local residents notafflicted with Minamata disease who areterrified that Chisso will be forced to close itsdoors.

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What these groups often fail to realize is thatalthough they in some ways have much to loseeconomically, they are not as far removed asthey might imagine from the experiences ofthose whose suffering is already visible. Mostobviously, the residents of the Minamata areawho oppose the anti-Chisso protests arethemselves at some risk of contractingMinamata disease. Also important is thenarrator’s suggestion that Tokyo – home to theDiet officials who eventually are persuaded totravel to Minamata – might in fact be just aspolluted as the environs of the Shiranui Sea.Suffering as well from overpopulation andoverconsumption, especially of automobiles,the Japanese capital hardly provides abenchmark of ecological health. As the elderlyfisher Ezuno notes partway through hisrhapsody on the beauties of the sea: “I heardthat in Tokyo cars line up on the roads,outnumbering people, who can’t walk on theroads. Houses and people both are rapidlymultiplying, and even sunlight doesn’t filterdown to them . . . They say the people in Tokyolive pitiful lives. From what I’ve heard the fishpaste they eat is made of rotten fish . . . Peoplewho live in Tokyo never get to know the taste offresh fish. They live their entire feeble liveswithout seeing the sun” (159-60). Ezuno firstclaims that cars outnumber people and thenthat people and their homes multiply rapidly,effectively filling up horizontal and verticalspace. City dwellers live under extremeconditions: their homes and automobiles thrive,but they lack space, light, and fresh food, andeven their fish paste comes from putridanimals. Ezuno suggests, however unwittingly,that Tokyo officials, already inured toenvironmental degradation, simply take forgranted, however unconsciously, much of whathas happened in the Minamata region. In fact,the area’s bright sunshine and relatively clearskies can make it appear more ecologicallyrobust than the Japanese capital. On the otherhand, if Minamata disease had affected onlycats (i.e., if people, unlike cats or fish, couldtolerate mercury), would the fishers have had

sufficient resources to investigate why theseanimals were sick? More important, are peoplewho suffer or watch a loved one suffer from anillness as debilitating and horrific as Minamatadisease capable of reflecting on nonhumansuffering? Should they be expected to do so?Sea of Suffering implies that these threequestions merit a negative answer and that thisis part of what makes preventing and repairingecodegradation so difficult. The best hope maybe concerned outsiders, including thejournalists, intellectuals, and artists to whomIshimure refers, who seemingly have less atstake. But the narrator exposes these personsas f ickle: their interest in human andnonhuman suffering lacks the deep rootsrequired for finding solutions.

A concern for nonhuman health because of itslink to human health closely relates to the viewthat the nonhuman is in the service of humans,a perception shared even by those with deepemotional connections to nature. In fact, inhighlighting such environmental ambiguity(respecting the nonhuman and believing it tobe at their service), Sea of Sufferingunwittingly posits certain congruenciesbetween local people’s attitudes toward thenonhuman and the outlooks of the Japanesegovernment and the Chisso Corporation.9 Japanese authorities and Chisso officials, likehigh-ranking employees of most governmentsand corporations, believe ecosystems are attheir disposal, to be used as they see fit. And incertain ways, paradoxically, so too do thepeople of Minamata, largely because of theirprofound attachments to these bodies of water.

Sea of Suffering cites Minamata residents asclaiming that the sea “resembles” or is “like”both their own garden, and, even morestrikingly, their own sea. The people ofMinamata generally stop short of declaring thesea to be “theirs,” preferring to focus on itssimilarities with rather than identification aspersonal property, but their repeatedassertions of near ownership put them in some

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awkward positions. At times such attitudesstem at least in part from desperation. As oneof the local residents asserts, “I’ve neither ricepaddies nor fields to leave my family. Just thesea, which I think of like my own sea [umi dakega, waga umi to onaji yō na mon de gozasuga;lit. Only the sea, which I think of as somethingthat is the same thing as my own sea]” (167).The language could not be clearer. At the sametime that this individual laments his destitution,he reveals that it accentuates his perceptions ofownership; lacking rice paddies and fields, heclaims the much greater area of the sea. Herepoverty, not wealth, enables exaggerateddeclarations of ownership.

Other characters in Sea of Suffering liken thesea to personal gardens that are in no dangerof disappointing their owners. Yuki, forinstance, reassures her husband Mohei thatthey will have little difficulty finding fish. Shereminds him, “I’ll take you to a place teemingwith fish. I’ve been at sea since I was three; Igrew up on a boat. The area around here is likemy own garden [kokora wa waga niwa nogotaru to bai]. And anyway, they say Ebisu [theJapanese god of fishers; one of the Seven Godsof Good Fortune] has deep compassion forboats with women” (112). Not only is the seanearly one’s own, it is treated as a garden;harvesting the sea as one would a garden is notsimply sanctioned, but encouraged. Belief thatEbisu regulates the sea, or at least that hehelps ensure a steady catch, appeases concernsthat the couple will go hungry. But in so doingit also l iberates Yuki and Mohei fromresponsibility for this space. The area aroundher home is “like” her garden, but it is notactually hers, so she is not responsible formaintaining its fecundity.

For Ezuno, the sea not only is the naturalextension of people or their property, fromwhich they can harvest food at will, it alsomakes them believe the entire planet is at theirdisposal: “There was the sea, like a field orgarden stretching from our houses, and

whenever we went, there were fish [waga uchini tsuitoru hatake ka, niwa no gotaru umi nosoko ni atte, sakanadomo ga itsu itatemo, sokoni otto de gozasuken] . . . Out on the sea, it’s asthough the whole world is yours [umi no ue nioreba waga hitori no tenka ja mo ne]”(159-60). Ezuno does not pronounce thatpeople own the sea, and he stops just short ofclaiming that the sea resembles their privategardens, declaring instead that the watersstretch out from their houses like fields orgardens of undetermined provenance (hatakeka, niwa no gotaru umi vs. Ezuno’s waga niwano gotaru [umi] and the waga umi of theMinamata resident cited above). But thesemore ambiguous conditions stimulate moregrandiose understandings of possession: it isthe world, not the sea, that they believe theirown.

Perceptions like Yuki’s and Ezuno’s leave littleallowance for endangered stock. To be sure,some fishers advocate gluttony, if only in jest,the narrator noting that the favorite saying ofthe fisher Masuto was “A fisher who can’t eat abucket of sashimi in one sitting is no fisher”(128). But most who believe fish a gift pridethemselves on taking from the sea only whathas been sanctioned from above. Ezunostresses that “Fish are a gift from heaven. Wetake as much as we need . . . All our lives wehave eaten what heaven has given us” (162-63),implying that the sea is bountiful and heavengenerous. And the narrator remarks that forYuki and Mohei “the catch was not terriblylarge; they spent their days fishing inmoderation” (112). Together, these and manysimilar statements underscore the ready fusingof feelings of connection with those of usershiprights, a combination that is not inevitable butone that is strikingly prevalent and can havepotent ia l ly grave consequences forenvironments.

Indeed it is significant that Yuki and Moheibelieve there is nothing wrong with continuingto fish even when the supply of marine life has

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notably decreased; they are proud that they donot take more than they need, but they do notstop to consider what will happen when whatthey need is more than the waters can provide,a possibility that is not purely hypothetical.Immediately before remarking that the sea islike her own garden and that Ebisu is lookingout for her, Yuki notes, “I remember that atthat time [when Yuki and Mohei were lookingfor fish] fish had already disappeared from thesea around Hyakken. But I knew better thanthe Minamata fishers where there were fish”(112). Not surprisingly, fish populations inHyakken harbor, where Chisso discharges itswastewater, have plummeted. Pockets of fishremain in other locations, and people believethat knowledge of the waters, and guidancefrom the gods, will help sustain Minamatafishers. But Yuki is seemingly undisturbedabout these losses and by the fact that she andher husband need to travel farther to find food.Yuki appears unconcerned about both piscineand human futures; the sea is so abundant andthe gods so generous that even if one space isdepleted there are infinite substitutes just ashort boat ride away.

And it is not just Yuki; the narrator indicatesthat over the years many local fishers haveexhibited similar tendencies. Earlier in Sea ofSuffering she describes the time-honoredcustom of gray mullet fishing in Minamata. Shenotes that fishers long had “competed with oneanother for the season’s largest gray mulletcatch” (63). Beginning in the early 1950sneither they nor their counterparts in nearbyTsunagi could get a single gray mullet to bite,no matter how carefully they tweakedconventional f ishing techniques; thepopulations of other animals also decreaseddramatically. The fishers talked with oneanother about these strange conditions, buttheir discussions appear to have becomesnagged in a debate about whether thedepletion of marine life in Tsunagi hadanything to do with similar events in Minamata.The fishers appear to be uninterested in

investigating the reasons behind the suddendisappearance of the mullet, shrimp, gizzardshad, sea bream, lobsters, and other creatureson which they have long depended. Instead,they are said to have sold their fishing suppliesand invested in flashier nets, which were notonly ineffective but were also quickly consumedby a rat population that exploded because of adearth of cats. Not long thereafter, the narratorreveals, the newly bankrupt fishers beganpoaching to survive. Lacking the perspective toseek more sustainable alternatives, theybelieved this was their only choice.

Without question, industrial pollution usuallyinvolves more rapid and severe damage to thebiot ic and abiot ic nonhuman than doconventional fishing, hunting, and farming bylocal peoples. But corporate and local attitudesvis-a-vis environments, particularly perceptionsof appropriate relationships between peopleand other species, are not as dissimilar asmight first be assumed. Sea of Sufferingimplicitly raises an extremely importantquestion in this regard. How different is it for acorporation to think it appropriate to use thesea as a dumping ground from a town toassume it can use the sea as its source ofnourishment, even if so doing involves huntingdown its last remaining fish? Although thesetwo outlooks seem to diverge greatly, whentranslated into behaviors, as they often are,distinctions can become more ambiguous. AsJared Diamond’s Collapse and much otherscholarship has shown, there is little to preventwhat seems to be sustainable use fromeventually triggering catastrophe.

The narrator of Sea of Suffering distinguishesclearly between the villagers’ directly killinganimals for survival and Chisso’s indirectlykilling animals for profit; the former isportrayed as sustaining people, the latter asdestroying both people and environments. Buta persistent question remains: what willhappen when nonhuman reproduction nolonger keeps pace with human demand? As

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Gregory M. Pflugfelder notes, paraphrasingConrad Totman:

When we try to understand thedynamics of human-biosystemrelations, it is well to bear in mindthat how we humans think aboutother animals (or about plants)carr ies l i t t le weight whencompared to the level of ourcapac i ty to man ipu la te orotherwise affect the world aroundus. If we need or want somethingbadly enough, and have thecapability to obtain it, it seems, wewill soon devise a rationale tojustify doing so. Sadly, the recordof human history suggests that it isa matter of little consequence [aspeople see it] whether any othermembers of the biosystem –including weaker humans – areinconvenienced by the enterprise.10

Sea of Suffering is foremost a stirring portraitof the physical and psychological anguish of thehuman victims of Minamata disease, one thatincludes many painful passages on thesuffering of Minamata patients and theirfamilies. Employing local discourse, thenarrator never allows the reader to forget thatdespite the environmentally cosmopolitanimplications of Minamata disease, this illnesswas for many a deeply personal ordeal. YetIshimure’s novel also sheds important light onconflicting attitudes toward ecosystems, notonly between but also within groups andindividuals. Most frightening, perhaps, is howregularly these ambiguities go undetected. Thenovel does not directly address the potentialimpacts of local people’s attitudes, whentranslated into behaviors, on the long-termhealth of ecosystems. But it does revealattitudes toward the nonhuman as complex,and often contradictory, particularly in cases ofsignificant human suffering brought about by a

degraded environment. Manifest ingecocosmopolitanism most directly are thenarrator’s references to cases of Minamatadisease in places far from Minamata and hermention of other instances of human-inducedsuffering in Japan and elsewhere. Likewise, thenarrator acknowledges Minamata disease asbut one manifestation of the problematicrelationships among people and betweenpeople and the nonhuman, relationshipsfrequently independent of culture andnationality. Just as significant, but notaddressed explicitly, is the prevalence in manysocieties of ecoambiguity such as that found inSea of Suffering. Although often unrecognized,the attitudinal clashes exhibited by Minamatafishers differ little from those of fishers andrural peoples in other parts of Japan, East Asia,and elsewhere in the world.

Conflicts between behaviors and physicalconditions are just as frequent as those amongattitudes, and many literary works that addresshuman-induced environmental disruptionportray disavowing this damage – acquiescingto i t by deny ing re spons ib i l i t y f o recodegradation and/or knowing about butdismissing (potential) ecodegradation – as acommon response to and facilitator ofcompromised ecosystems. This disjuncturebetween behaviors and irrefutable physicalconditions plays a central role in Sea ofSuffering, Ishimure accentuating the extent towhich governments, corporations, citizens’groups, and individuals will go to refute thatenvironmental degradation exists or, whenoverwhelming evidence to the contrary makessuch denial impossible, to reject responsibilityfor it, minimize its seriousness, and strive toexpunge it from public consciousness. Sea ofSuffering shows disconnects between obviousphysical evidence (nonhuman spaces that areclearly polluted; people who are unquestionablydisfigured) and the behaviors (disavowals,including both active denials and consciousindifference) of many in the Japanesegovernment, the Chisso Corporation, and

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residents of Minamata and surrounding towns.

Although most creative texts concerned withdamage to environments address indifferencetoward and denials of this damage, Sea ofSuffering is one of a subset that stresses thecentral role of these behaviors in causing andfacilitating environmental degradation. More sothan many narratives, it also specifies thereasons behind such disavowals, as well astheir consequences. The novel devotessignificant attention to alternatives, contrastingdenials of Minamata disease with the greatcompassion for the afflicted demonstrated notonly by the families and close friends ofMinamata patients but also by the Japanesemedical community and sometimes by membersof groups known pr imar i ly for the irdisavowals. Incorporating other instances ofindustrial pollution both in Japan and abroad,Ishimure’s text eloquently exposes denial ofenvironmental degradation as a nearly globalphenomenon, one endemic in human societies.On the other hand, the disavowals do not gounchallenged.

Many individuals featured in Sea of Suffering,not to mention the narrator and the novel itself,actively reject their validity. Early in the novelthe narrator cites Sensuke, an elderly man whosuccumbed to Minamata disease, as havingdeclared his a “disgraceful, unsightly illness.”The narrator claims that these terms describenot only the disease but also those “who causedthis incident, concealed it, disregarded it, andtried to make people forget about it” (57). Mostreprehensible, according to the narrator, is theChisso Corporation. In 1959 scientists prepareda report indicating that Chisso’s dailydischarges of toxic, mercury-laden wastewaterinto Minamata Bay were the likely cause ofMinamata disease. Yet rather than cooperate insubsequent investigations, for many years thecorporation did everything it could to deny itsrole in propagating this disease, includingpumping wastewater under cover of night andprohibiting scientists from taking samples from

the bay. The narrator describes some Chissoemployees as sympathetic to the plight ofMinamata patients, even alerting residents ofMinamata to Chisso’s plans to divert theirwastewater channel to another location;similarly, researchers from the Chisso companyhospital contribute to efforts to understand thedisease better. And at its August 1967 meetingthe Chisso First Union issued a declarationcondemning its own failure to fight Minamatadisease and affirming its commitment to do soin the future. But for the most part, Sea ofSuffering paints Chisso as an absolute villain,one that denies any connection between factorywastewater and Minamata disease yet prohibitsscientists from studying the wastewater; onethat does everything it can to avoid payingindemnities and instead continues to dischargepoisonous effluent, thus expanding the numberof people who may demand compensation; andone that delays dispatching employees to visithospitalized Minamata patients until 1965,more than a decade after the outbreak of theillness. The narrator comments:

L o o k e d a t f r o m t o d a y ’ sperspective, the noble and strongpersonality and the superiorinvestigative research of Dr.Hosokawa [one of the premierresearchers of Minamata disease]into the outbreak and spread ofMinamata disease provides afantastic contrast with all theattitudes [and behaviors] exhibitedby the Chisso Corporation (69).11

Acknowledging Minamata disease belatedly in1968 and only with great reluctance, theJapanese central government is described aslargely responsible for facilitating Chisso’sdisavowals. This contrasts with local politicalbodies, which although relatively ineffective,show considerable concern with the spread ofMinamata disease and establish variousinvestigative groups.

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Yet throughout Sea of Suffering the narratorhighlights the tragedy of this situation: thegreater and more widespread the suffering ofthose affected physically or economically(fishers with no market for their contaminatedcatch, or even with nothing to catch), thegreater and more persistent the efforts of thosenot affected to disregard their suffering, bothChisso and bystanders in the local population.Commenting on the presumably deliberatemisperceptions of the local Public HealthDepartment concerning Minamata disease, thenarrator notes that “The strange illnesscontinued to work its way steadily along thecoast of the Shiranui Sea, moving from onevillage to another. The true nature of thestrange illness was not officially declared, butthe incidents and their ramifications slowlycontinued to tear apart people’s lives andhearts” (179).

Sea of Suffering underscores how nationalpoliticians and other government employeesdownplay if not disavow Minamata disease. Tobe sure, the central government is depicted asinitially being concerned about the illness. Thenarrator notes that in 1957 the Ministry ofEducation established the Minamata DiseaseComprehensive Research Group, a unitcomposed primarily not of Chisso officials butinstead of presumably impartial doctors fromKumamoto University Medical School. Thegroup’s report identified organic mercury asthe most likely cause of the disease and pointedto Chisso’s practice of pouring untreatedwastewater into Minamata Bay. Despite thesefindings, the Japanese government for manyyears did not prohibit Chisso from continuingto deposit outflow, nor did it enact measures toclean polluted waters or to help those strickenwith Minamata disease. These disavowals ofthe significance of this illness marked thebeginning of decades of frustrating strugglesby Minamata patients and their families withboth the central government and Chisso.

Like Chisso officials, national politicians and

bureaucrats are depicted as disavowingMinamata disease for a variety of reasons:financial dependence of the town, region, andnation on industries like Chisso; inability toappreciate the suffering of Minamata diseasepatients and the significance of the damageinflicted on local ecosystems; and simpleheartlessness, including the belief that becauseMinamata disease affected such a small, rural,and impoverished segment of the Japanesepopulation it did not merit attention. This isparticularly true of Japan’s central government.In his report on the Minamata Disease PolicyCommittee’s visit to Tokyo in 1957, CityAssemblyperson Hirota Sunao recalls thatofficials in the Welfare Ministry not only hadnever heard of Minamata but upon learningthat the disease affected mostly indigentfishers, claimed it too trivial a matter to pursue.Those who listened to their petition did so onlyto be polite and were eager to see them depart(79).

The meeting in Minamata between Dietrepresentatives and the Municipal Assemblytwo years later (November 2, 1959) is no moreproductive. The narrator describes thisencounter as resembling a “cross-examination”(76). Diet members take advantage of therecently elected mayor’s inexperience withpolitics and his relative unfamiliarity withMinamata disease and its effects on the town.The narrator laments: “Both the regionaladministration and the Diet were supposed tobe looking out for the people, but it wasinevitable that the meeting between the twosets of officials, with their different agendas,would become a confrontation between theauthority of the Diet and the powerlessimpoverished” (77).

The narrator speaks on several occasions of thenational government’s long history ofdisavowing industrial pollution, and of itsfailure to confront much less prevent suchoccurrences. She reminds readers of the Ashiocopper mine incident (1880s) and how the

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rights of local farmers near Ashio have yet tobe recognized nearly a century later,indemnities have yet to be paid, and acommission has yet to be established to studyJapan’s first modern pollution event. And sheaccuses the Japanese government moregenerally as having “a policy of abandoning itspeople” (kono kuni no kimin seisaku) (234). In1968 – fifteen years after the first instances ofMinamata disease and four years after the firstcases of mercury poisoning in Niigata (NiigataMinamata disease) – the Japanese governmentat last declares Chisso entirely responsible forMinamata disease. But the narrator is quick tonote that this admission by no means resolvesthe struggles of those afflicted with the disease.

The most troubling disavowals of Minamatadisease come from residents of the Minamataarea who fear that acknowledging both theseverity of water pollution and Chisso’sculpability in instigating it will furtherdestabilize the region’s already precariouseconomy. Although a number of localgovernment bodies take the disease seriously,many individuals chastise Minamata patientsand other activists for threatening the welfareof their town. The narrator includes an articlefrom the October 19, 1968 Kumamoto editionof the Mainichi shinbun (Mainichi Newspaper)describing the Development of Minamata CityCitizens’ Conference. The conferenceprospectus chastises those residents who havebeen intent on having Chisso admit itswrongdoing and modify i ts behavior;conference participants support those afflictedby Minamata disease but insist on continuedcooperation with Chisso.

Significantly, disavowals by Chisso, the centralgovernment, and residents of the Minamataarea forestall not only the prevention of furtheroutbreaks of the disease, compensation toMinamata patients and their families, andremediation of environments, but also furtherprotests by Minamata activists. The narratoremphasizes what a difference it makes to be

taken seriously by the authorities, not only inthe form of increased outside intervention(more government regulation of and sanctionsagainst polluters) but also in empowering theafflicted. One sad example is a meeting withMinamata fishers when Diet members visit thetown (November 2, 1959). The fishers aredelighted at the opportunity to share theirexperiences with the Japanese authorities, whotreat them with respect and listen solemnly asthey detail the crises facing their community.They are so emboldened by the compassionshown by Diet members that later that dayseveral thousand of them hold a protest rally atthe Chisso factory; the rally quickly turnsviolent, injuring several factory workers anddozens of fishers and police. The narratordeclares it unlikely that the principal cause ofthese riots, as often is argued, was the inabilityof union leaders to control their subordinates.Instead, she claims that “The real essence ofthe problem lay elsewhere. The situationprobably resulted from the fact that measuresto fight Minamata disease have until todaybeen almost entirely neglected . . . We can saythat responsibility for the inauspiciousincidents of November 2 lies with the lethargyof the authorities” (97-98). Had authorities atalmost every level not had a history ofdisavowing the seriousness of Minamatadisease, the meeting with Diet officials likelywould not have made as deep an impression onthe fishers and would not have inspired a riot.Yet the question is not whether the fishersstorm the Chisso factory, but when. Had theirproblems been taken seriously by theauthorities from the outset, those physicallyand economically affected by Minamata diseasemight, as the narrator suggests, never have feltthe need to resort to violence. But there is alsoa strong possibility that they might havemarched on the factory sooner. Earlier activismcould have resulted in increased repression,but it also might have motivated the authoritiesto respond more quickly to the pollution of thewaters around Minamata, saving no smallnumber of lives.

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Sea of Suffering exposes not only the terriblesuffering experienced by those stricken withMinamata disease but also the many political,social, and economic forces that, in denyingthis suffering, allow it to proliferate. Ishimure’snovel trenchantly reveals that even the mostobviously debilitating conditions – asphotojournalism such as the work of W. EugeneSmith and Aileen M. Smith revealed, Minamatadisease is anything but a silent killer – arerepudiated in the name of social stability andcommercial profit. People are depicted not onlya s d o i n g n o t h i n g w h e n f a c e d w i t hecodegradation but also as actively fightingagainst measures to remediate existing damageand prevent future harm to environments. Inher afterword, Ishimure declares hers a“fragment of a book” (258). The novel is hardlya fragment. But one important question itraises yet leaves unanswered is whether, withdisparities between conditions and behaviors soextreme, with even the most obviouslydebilitating and painful disease so readilydisavowed, there is any real hope ofdiminishing, much less preempting,environmental crises.

Discourse on environmental and disciplinarycrises abounds. Many contend that ecologicalcalamities are likely to be the most pressingissues of the twenty-first century. Many alsoargue that literature scholarship and thehumanities more generally are in flux. Thesedilemmas will not be easily resolved. Butscholarship on individual cultures provides vitalfoundations for comprehending specificcontexts of ecological abuse. The fields ofcomparative and particularly world literaturehelp us appreciate more fully how creativewriting and scholarship on creative writing canboth reinforce and defy national, cultural,linguistic, geopolitical, and ecological divisions.Ecocr i t ic i sm and other branches o fenvironmental humanities demonstrateespecially clearly the exciting possibilities forhumanistic intervention in ecodegradation. Yetthere is much work to be done. To understand

better the cultural products to whose study wedevote our professional lives, humanists needto increase their collaboration not only withone another, but also with colleagues in thesocial, physical, and life sciences. Even moreimportant, we need to become and toencourage our students to become moreactively involved in the social and ecologicalmovements that address the key issues of ourtimes.

This article was prepared as an introduction tothe author’s Ecoambiguity: East AsianLiteratures and Environmental Crises.(Michigan 2012)

Karen Thornber is Harris K. Weston AssociateProfessor of the Humanities in the Departmentof Comparative Literature at HarvardUniversity. Having earned her Ph.D. in EastAsian Languages and Civilizations at Harvardin 2006, she is the author of Empire of Texts inMotion: Chinese, Korean, and TaiwaneseTransculturations of Japanese Literature(http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Texts-Motion-T r a n s c u l t u r a t i o n s - H a r v a r d -Yenching/dp/0674036255) (Harvard 2009),which won both the Association for AsianStudies John Whitney Hall Book Prize (2011)for the best English-language book on Japanand the International Comparative LiteratureAssociation Anna Balakian Book Prize (2010)for the best book in the field of ComparativeLiterature in the last three years by a scholarunder age forty. Ecoambiguity: EnvironmentalCr i se s and Eas t As i an L i t e ra tu res(http://www.amazon.com/Ecoambiguity-Environm e n t a l - C r i s e s - A s i a n -Literatures/dp/0472118064) (Michigan 2012) isher second book. Her translation of the atomic-bomb writer Tōge Sankichi’s Genbaku shishū(http://www.worldcat.org/title/genbaku-shishu/oclc/033678529) (Poems of the Atomic Bomb,1 9 5 2 ) , p u b l i s h e d a s a n e - b o o k(http://ceas.uchicago.edu/japanese/Genbaku%20shishu.pdf)by the University of ChicagoCenter for East Asian Studies, won the 2012

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William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize inJapanese Literature and Literary Studies. Sheis currently studying Hindi and Urdu for hercurrent book project, Global Health and WorldLiterature: East Asia and the Indian Ocean Rim.

Recommended citation: Karen Thornber,"Environmental Ambiguity, Literature, andIshimure Michiko," Vol 10, Issue 24, No 2, June11, 2012.

Notes

1 < l i n k( h t t p : / / w w w . s h o s e n k y o -kankoukyokai.com/b/)>. Chichibu-Tama-KaiNational Park is mainly in Yamanashiprefecture, approximately two hours west ofTokyo.

2 Ishimure has worked for decades to educatepeople the world over about Minamata diseaseand to compel Japanese authorities tocompensate more adequately Minamatadisease patients and their families. Sea ofSuffering, her most famous literary work, is thefirst part of her trilogy on Minamata and one ofher many writings on this tragedy.

3 Lawrence Buell, The Future of EnvironmentalCriticism: Environmental Crisis and theLiterary Imagination (Malden, MA: Blackwell,2005), vi.

4 Although the two frequently overlap, attitudesare best understood as mental states andbehaviors as actions we carry out toward otherentities, including the nonhuman. BarbaraAlmond, The Monster Within: The Hidden Sideof Motherhood (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 2010), 8.

5 Translations are my own, based on IshimureMichiko, Kugai jōdo: Waga Minamatabyō, inIshimure Michiko zenshū 2. (Tokyo: FujiwaraShoten, 2004), 7–254.

6 During the colonial period Chisso built anetwork of factories in Korea, China, andTaiwan.

7 In a developmental state, business leadersand national economic bureaucrats togetherplan an industrial economy, but the means ofproduction are in private hands.

8 The principal exception is an article from asupplement to the January 1957 issue of theKumamoto Igakkai zasshi (Journal of theKumamoto Medical Society), included in thenovel’s third chapter, that discusses thesymptoms of a cat afflicted by Minamatadisease (118–20). The narrator also includesseveral graphic descriptions of poisoned fish.

9 Sea o f Su f fer ing l i kewise revea l scontradictions between local people’s attitudesand actual behaviors toward animals, mostsignificantly between the fishers’ deep affectionfor and killing of fish.

10 Gregory M. Pflugfelder, “Preface, Confessionsof a Flesh Eater,” in Gregory M. Pflugfelderand Brett L. Walker, eds., JAPANimals: Historyand Culture in Japan’s Animal Life (Ann Arbor:Center for Japanese Studies, University ofMichigan, 2005), xv.

11 The narrator of Sea of Suffering frequentlyalternates references to Chisso’s heartlessnesswith those to the dedication of medicalresearchers.