コロナ禍の新聞小説と現代社会の断層 - 川上未映子『黄色い家』を中心に -

초록

This study re-examines the literary and social significance of newspaper serials published in the Heisei and subsequent eras and presents future directions for research and the need for further analysis. Whilst newspaper serials were actively studied from the Meiji period through to the 1950s, those published during the Heisei era and onwards have received comparatively little attention in literary scholarship. Therefore, this paper analyses works serialised during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the editional policies and readerships of Japan’s three major newspapers. Further, this paper specifically examines Mieko Kawakami’s The Yellow House, published in the Yomiuri Shimbun, which reashes a broad readeship, and through detailed textual analysis, examines social contradictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly issues of systemic exclusion and social conformity pressures. The Yellow House, though set in the late 1990s, portrays structural poverty and the suffering of those marginalized by institutional systems, which are comparable to issues in work thus embodies a profound social criticality, posing the question: ‘What is justice?’ Serialised in a daily newspaper, it demands a significant “preparedness” on the part of its readers and ecpands the potential of the newspaper serial.

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