Masuji Ono's Transformation

War, in particular the brutality and harshness, can ultimately change a human being and lead to a “transformation.”  This appears to be the case with Masuji Ono, the main character in Kazuo Ishiguro’s, An Artist of the Floating World.  There are many question marks through the first sixty pages that lead one to believe something happened in World War II that led to Ono becoming someone different.  There are many contrasts before and after the war that help solidify this point.  However, Ono still holds on to a few old beliefs that also help to shape his character.

Throughout his life leading up to the war, Ono loved art and painting.  As a little boy, Ono’s father conducted business meetings with him so he could become a successful businessman too.  However, Ono despised these meetings and nothing was going to stop him from becoming an artist.  His father looked down on art and even burned Ono’s paintings.  When his father is burning his paintings, he tells his mother, “It doesn’t bother me in the least what Father’s doing in the reception room.  All he’s kindled is my ambition” (pg. 48).  In fact, Ono did go on to become a successful artist.  However, after the war, none of his paintings are to be found anywhere around his house.  His grandson Ichiro says to him, “Father says you had to finish.  Because Japan lost the war” (pg. 32).  Clearly, something happened during and after the war that made him quit painting or deterred his ambition and desire to paint.

During the war, Ono lost his only son, Kenji, under senseless circumstances.  He was killed running across a minefield and the ashes returned to Ono could not even be guaranteed that they were in fact Kenji’s.  Could this terrible tragedy have something to do with Ono’s transformation?  His daughters see him as having selective memory and moping about the house a lot.  It is likely that these new mannerisms have some relation to something that happened during the war.

On the other hand, Ono still hangs on to some of his old beliefs.  Ono’s son in law, Suichi, believes that Americans are better role models than anyone Japanese.  He takes his son, Ichiro, to American movies and promotes them as leaders.  At Ono’s house, Ichiro runs around the house as if on a horse and is imitating the Lone Ranger.  Ono tells Ichiro, “It’s more interesting, more interesting by far, to pretend to be someone like Lord Yoshitsune” (pg. 30).  Clearly, Ono is trying to hold on to some of his culture’s older values in the ever changing new world.

 

Masuji Ono is a complex character confused between his old ideals and the new world that is beginning to take shape post World War II.  He wants to hold on to some of his old ideals and pass them on to the younger generation.  However, something occurred during the war that caused him to become very different.  He struggles with these variables and mopes around the house a lot.  His life seems to follow that of a butterfly at this point in the story.  Before the war he was a caterpillar and after the war the same person took the form of a butterfly.  The man is still the same, yet the appearance is quite different.