Noboru

noboru brainstorm.
 * __Noboru__**

Noboru is a child who comes from a respectable background as indicated at the start of the novel. “The second floor of this gangling house was hopelessly high” – P3. This quote shows that their family is rather wealthy and the fact that his mother is the owner of a national enterprise also provides evidence of this.

Throughout the novel, Noboru is eager to explore and find out new things. At the beginning of the novel, we can see this when he explores and discovers his peephole in his bedroom wall looking at his mother’s room. “Peering at his mother’s bedroom through the peephole, Noboru sensed something new and fresh about it”. – P4. The fact that his mother’s bedroom is unchanged, even when observing it through a peephole, indicates that Noboru is talking about his new power he has discovered over her mother. “Noboru began spying on his mother at night, particularly when she had nagged or scolded him” – P7. This quote portrays that he uses the peephole as revenge on his mother when she is unhappy with him states his aggressive personality.

Noboru was brought up by his mother alone through a western background. However, he is part of a gang which contradicts these western ideas with traditional samurai codes and perceptions. Noboru constantly relates his ideas with masculinity. We can see this when he observes that Ryuji was “Not such a big man” – P11, when he watched his mother and Ryuji through his peephole. Noboru clearly admires Ryuji with his homoerotic description of the man’s body on P11, as if it was sacred. This is because Noboru believes that a having a well-built body is honorable as it signifies a strong character or soldier, built for war.

We can also relate Noboru and Ryuji mentally as well due to their similar ideas of glory and death. They are both related to ships, which represent freedom to seek the honorable path, provide the reader with one indication. Furthermore, Noboru believes of the glorious death and that his father’s death was “something to be proud of” – P8, while Ryuji was currently seeking this path at the beginning, showing this strong bond between the two characters and also why Noboru had once highly admired the sailor.

In many parts of the novel, Noboru acts and especially thinks more like an adult than a child, in terms of his perception of the world. The author conveys how Noboru believes more of the traditional samurai ideas he is taught from the genius group in contrast to his mother’s western teachings. Firstly we see that he is very loyal to this group at the beginning of the novel. “He hadn’t revealed the chief’s name” – P3, emphasizes where his loyalty belongs as he did not give in to his mother, a character with a strong influence on Noboru’s life. Although Noboru follows traditional samurai ideas, we can see that he does not fully follow it due to his hesitation when a choice is to be made. This follows one of the major themes of the novel – regret and whether you made the right choice on life-changing decisions. We can see this in both scenes where the gang kills the cat and Ryuji respectively. “He checked himself for pity…it flickered for an instant in the distance and disappeared. He was relieved.” – P57. This quote emphasizes his true inner thoughts of murdering the cat and how his emotions are well hidden as he does not want to dishonor himself in front of the gang. It also portrays the mental conflict that is happening inside his mind and that if he loses this conflict, he would also lose control of his body – an honorable and important sign of samurai perceptions as mentioned earlier. In relation to Ryuji’s murder towards the end of the novel. “He noticed Noboru’s hand was trembling” – P181. This tells the reader of Noboru’s indecision, the pity that is overwhelming the child and also the gradual defeat of his mental battle as he is killing a man his mother loves, a man he once admired and more importantly, a human being.

Noboru spies on her mother through the ‘peephole’ every night. The words ‘spite’ and ‘whine’ are used to describe his spying process which makes the atmosphere very unpleasant. This kind of perverted behaviour should not be carried out by a 13 year old boy.

Noboru asks her mom to bring him to visit the freighter. This is a significant action because if Noboru had not requested the visit, Fusako and Ryuji would not have fallen in love with each other. Ryuji is the one who takes Noboru and his mom to look around the freighter. Noboru adores Ryuji because he is a sailor. Npboru believes that being a father or a teacher is a sin and as the novel goes on, Ryuji develops a relationship with Fusako and his ‘fathery image’ starts to appear in Noboru’s mind which makes Noboru dislike and disrespect him.

Noboru kills a stray cat and that is the first time that death is introduced to him. He believes that they can bring glory to the cat by killing it. At first Noboru feels scared but not anymore while he is taking the action. Because of this experience, Noboru is not scared of death anymore and meanwhile he and his gang find out that juveniles who are below the age of 14 are not punishable by laws. Base on this law, as the novel carries on and gets to the part where Noboru hates Ryuji, the whole gang makes a decision of killing Ryuji.

Noboru tells the chief and the gang about Ryuji’s unforgivable behaviours. They come to a conclusion of killing him in order to give him the heroic image. Noboru does not agree and hesitates for a while but is finally persuaded by the others. If he had not told the gang that Ryuji is staying on land and has given up his dream, this critical decision would not have been made.

Noboru is asked by the chief to lure Ryuji down to their dry dock somehow. This is optional for him whether he does so or not. Ryuji’s life is basically controlled by Noboru but Noboru has finally made a decision of doing so.

While Ryuji is reflecting, the chief serves him a cup of drugged tea. However Ryuji is so caught up with his mind that he does not drink it. Ryuji sees that and has decided to take a second action, which is to serve him the cup of tea again. This time Ryuji drinks it. This shows Noboru hates Ryuji so much and he really wants to send him to death.

Noboru is considered as a product of Japanese history. Noboru believes that death will bring perfection and honour while the imperial samurais believe that committing suicide is a kind of honour. This also links to the writer Yukio Mishima. He committed seppuku because of the failure of his dream of restoring Japan to its original power and glory.

After the Second World War, Japanese society was in a poor state and there was a lot of dissatisfaction of Japanese youths with society. The young people could not find the purpose of life. This applies to the situation of Mishima while his dream was broken.

Noboru considers himself as a genius, and so do the other gang members. This shows us that arrogance is a Japanese culture. Another example of the Japanese being arrogant is that after the Second World War, they did not accept the fact that they were defeated and they insisted that they surrendered. (NOTE - Always be clear about whether these are YOUR ideas, the CHARACTER'S ideas or the AUTHOR'S ideas. Saying that Japanese people are arrogat could very easily be seen as being offensive; who, if anyone, is actually saying this?)

There is something weird about Noboru and his thoughts. "He wondered if that had anything to do with the emptiness of his own world", is a quote which shows that Noboru's thoughts are not usual for a thirteen year old boy, or any human for that matter. Noboru himself thinks that he is mature enough to enter a more adult world and participate in adult activities.

Noboru is in need of a model of manhood and instantly attaches himself to Tsukazaki, as he is the first man he has seen his mother with for a long time. To Noboru, Tsukazaki is the perfect role model of what a man should be, strong, masculine and definatly not western. Noboru is trying to become a man, he uses control over his mother (when she masturbates) to try to achieve this.

[|Noboru]
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