A Personal Matter
A Personal Matter is one Oe’s bets works I have ever read. In his writing, Oe is one unique writer that writes for the adults since he does not want to impose his feelings to the audience or readers of his work. He leaves the readers to make their own judgment about the issues in the novel. The writer has not taken any chances in his work through forcing down his thoughts to the readers. The book depicts a lot of vision within which the writer chose to draft his work. The novel, “A Personal Matter” can be described in a few words as a great work except for a few pages towards the end of the book. In this paper, the rationale behind the behavior of the main character, Bird, is going to be discussed.
The tale in the novel is about a man called Bird whose name can not be taken for granted. The use of this name by the author is symbolic in its own rights. Just like a bird in really situation behaves, Bird in the novel is as well gangly. In addition to this the character can be looked at in terms of being childish and psychologically immature. One weakness with this character is the habit of avoiding responsibilities in his life. The novelist has clearly brought out his irresponsibility through the birth of his child by his wife. After birth, it is discovered that the child is greatly deformed and according to the doctor, the child has a brain hernia and form the outlook it does not appear human. As a result, this child has to undergo an operation in which Bird’s reaction is contemptuous. At the first point, he refuses to name the child because according to him, spending money on the operation for the child will be a waste of resources. His only hope lies in the fact that the child may eventually die as a result of the abnormalities so far exposed.
On the other hand, the doctor has informed the child’s parents that even if the operation came out successfully, it may be hard for the child to lead a normal life. This demoralizes Bird and is reluctant in spending his money on the child. To turn away from centering the book on the child, the author has done a lot in the exposing of Bird’s selfishness. His selfishness and irresponsibility are seen shortly after the birth of the child. He totally forgets about what has happened and concentrates on his personal social life. Bird moves into a sexual affair with a different woman even before his own wife has left the hospital.
The character is a total drunkard and even the wife goes ahead to note that whenever an important matter arises, the man gets into drunkenness or preoccupied with crazy ideas that make him float into the sky just like really birds. This is a rich employment of similes by the author to bring out the recklessness of Bird in the novel. Oe has presented Bird as one character who can not be emulated by the readers in his own struggles of life. He makes up for his own mistakes. From what he does, there is no single shred of sympathy that can be triggered from the readers of the novel.
The work Oe presents is totally against the expectations of most publishers of books who want to associate with the characters in the works they read. The reality in such cases is that conceal the fact that Bird’s disgust concerning the child is one that most individuals have exercised and therefore the writer points out this without any apologies. The ironical character traits of Bird are presented when he fantasized divorcing his own wife whereas he has strong feeling towards the wife. When the sex scene is described, it is totally contrary to the feeling of dislike towards her. The book is tactically presented in a philosophical period when time and space are contrasting. Bird as much as he has the freedom to do as he wanted, there is still need for him to be responsible for whatever happen afterwards. During the extramarital sex, Bird describes the Vagina for the woman, Himiko as being simplicity itself and at the same time when he remembers the moments with his own wife, he has that feeling of timidity and unavoidable sense of peril.
Despite the fact that the two have been in marriage for a good period of time, they still feel that gloomy scenario each time they made love with each other. The novel can therefore be referred to mature readers from the kind of character as Bird being presented. The irony presented by the author on the character of Bird is further indicated through his abrupt change in character and the way he looks at his born child. After the child who was initially termed to have a brain hernia recovers and loses his unfamiliar appearance, Bird seems to rectify everything in him at a faster rate. This simply implies that the author twists around everything to present Bird at the end of the novel as a mature person in thought.
From the reader’s expectation, Bird should have abandoned the mysterious child and chose to live on his own but this does not become the case. He instead accepts the child. He therefore portrays a sense of responsibility at some point in the novel. This kind of ending of the novel shows the author’s ability to rich employ characterization and readers viewpoints towards his characters. Confession within the main character is what is shown by the author when Bird accepts the responsibilities as a man. The novel is therefore an educative one and any individual looking at it should be in a position to improve their social life after learning from the mistakes committed by Bird towards his family.
The paper has explicitly explored the novel “A Personal Matter” by Oe which in the title itself has employed a lot of symbolism after reading the work. In the analysis of the novel, much emphasis has been put on the character and characterization. Through the main character behaving irresponsibly, readers can read the author’s mind and make their personal judgment on issues concerning family conflict and fate in life. Fate chose that the child be born deformed and therefore it becomes unreasonable when the father assumes irresponsibility and wishes for the death of the child. This is a true depiction of human character and hence Oe leaves his audience to make valid judgment on the character of Bird and the environment surrounding him.
