Some Themes of Japanese Literature

Darkness: A continuing theme

Japanese literature seems to have a very dark preface. Not to say that all of the literature for Japan is dark, but a lot of it has some form of death, pain, or some other kind of suffering. From the conflict of Bird in A Personal Matter to Hiiragi's actions in Moonlight Shadow, there seems to be a kind of shadow overlooking what happens in the novel. Many times the protagonists have to work to overcome this darkness so that their conflicts can be resolved, and, since these are novels, they usually do. Even earlier literature has these themes of darkness, in particular Hagakure, which was a very dark book, though it wasn't really a novel, but a set of guidelines. Even across the ages, this theme of darkness and death has held. Not that this is common in all literature (A Wild Sheep Chase comes to mind), but that feeling is generally there.