ABSTRACT
By ‘ambiguity’, or ‘the ambiguous’, Oe intended to shed light upon the multifaceted agonies of Japan. First, Japan has held a very ambivalent status due to its unique history. In terms of its economy, Japan developed rapidly after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and was the only non-western member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development (OECd) until Mexico and the Republic of korea (i.e. South korea) became members in the mid 1990s. Japan is an Asian country nonetheless, and the Japanese sometimes feel mentally or culturally torn between the East and west. Such ambivalence is one aspect of the ambiguity previously mentioned.
