Kobo Abe

“No man or woman is wooed by theory alone.” (WITD 32)

In declaiming the ability to woo by theory, Kobo Abe betrays his desire to do exactly that. Trained as a physician, Abe has a mindset which leans toward the scientific method: one of hypothesis, experiment, result, and conclusion. In this case, the original hypothesis posed that a man could woo by theory alone, the experiment was the attempt of a wooing guided by theoretical principles, the result a failure, and the conclusion drawn is that such a wooing is not possible, disproving the original hypothesis. We see in this procedure not only Abe’s predilection for theory and introspection, but we also are provided a glimpse at the motivations of a man who would initially believe in a theory of wooing, a concept which to many might seem an obvious contradiction. His novels, indeed, is rife with the contradictions that have been Abe’s trademark, and it is in his attempt to unify these various contradictions to prove a common theme of personal freedom and nonconformity that the novels gain the greater part of its power.

In The Woman in the Dunes, Abe describes the nature of reality: the individual reality, wherein it ultimately springs forth from the unconscious mind, and the social reality, where the individual reality, at least in terms of its manifestation, can be either suppressed or encouraged by the type of society in which the individual lives and works. It is a complex attempt to unify these two realities, and to reach a sort of accord whereby the individual self can find expression and participate in a meaningful manner in the social reality. In other words, he is attempting to bridge that chasm, the gap that separates the constricting perception of day-to-day social reality from the larger and far less stable absolute reality, of which the day-to-day social reality is but one small part.

Abe deals with these themes through the image of the sand. The sand is formless, and yet it becomes a barrier blocking the protagonist’s attempts at escape. It sucks moisture from his body, but also traps it, causes wood to rot, and, in the final pages of the story, becomes a massive water pump. Abe uses sand imagery as a means to convey both the absurdity of the social day-to-day reality as well as a means by which an almost Zen-like meditative state is induced in the protagonist, through which he may achieve a higher level of consciousness. Used as a metaphor for samsara, the shifting, illusory state of reality in traditional Buddhist doctrine, it also becomes the source for water, or wisdom and enlightenment. These contradictions unified under a single element, the sand, serve as the theme of the novel.

The protagonist’s view of the sand in the early portions of the novel is one of abstract, intellectual curiosity. He is ostensibly drawn to it in his attempts to discover a new species of beetle, but his interest in it goes far beyond its impact on the mutation of beetles. Attracted by the seemingly dualistic nature of the sand (as close up, a solid with a definite form, yet on a larger scale it behaves much like liquid) he attributes to it an almost romantic mystery. He finds himself in awe of its slow yet unstoppable force, force which has been sufficient to wipe out empires, and its ceaseless motion. “What a difference,” he says, “when compared to this depressing reality where, throughout the year, people are constantly being pressured to cling together.” (WITD15)

His life in the city lacks every virtue which he has attributed to the sand. He follows a very routine, sedentary existence and, rather than attempting to emulate the sand’s denial of stability and impermanence, his life’s goal has become that of discovering a new species of insect so that he may, in a very humble way, be immortalized in the insect encyclopedia, with his name integrated into the Latin name of the beetle. This sort of contradiction between the ideal (the sand) and the real (his life in the city) is possible only so long as one of the two remains within the realm of the abstract. Here we see it is the sand that is abstracted, but the situation will soon be reversed.

We see the man’s world and sense of identity begin to fall apart when he is trapped within the pit and forced to battle each night with the cascading sands. The endless labor of the villagers, which he likens to the infernal punishment at the River of Hades, draws from him an irrational anger. During his first night’s stay with the woman, before he realizes that he has been imprisoned in the pit, he attempts to help her with the work of shoveling the sand, but soon gives up, dismissing the endeavor as futile. He becomes irate when the woman refuses to follow his example and continues shoveling the whole night through:

The sand would never allow them any rest. The man was completely disoriented. He was confused,