Over-Ambition: Forming, Experiencing, and Ending

Kyle Liang

Mr. Ian Springer

ENG 3U

5 January 2015

Over-ambition: Forming, Experiencing, and Ending

What would you do if someone you love commits a crime? Will you cover the crime for him/her? The book The Devotion of Suspect X, which is written by a Japanese author named Keigo Higashino, details about how a math teacher, Ishigami, has an infatuation with his neighbour Yasuko (a single mother), and even makes a precise plan for her in order to cover the crime. This book not only describes how the police uncover the mystery, but also shows the complicated relationship between Ishigami and Yasuko, indicating that he uses her as a tool to achieve his ambition - to see himself as her hero and to display his ability of covering a crime. After reading this book, we are able to discover how militarism triggers over-ambition, how over-ambition affects Japanese to have an abnormal attitude towards love and how over-ambition leads to loneliness.

First of all, one of the major factors that triggers over-ambition in Japanese culture is imperialism. Imperialism, which is also called monopoly capitalism, is normally achieved by plundering resources from colonies. It is also common in some western countries; but in Japan, the realization of imperialism is done in a special way - militarism. The realization of militarism contributes to form one major aspect of Japanese characteristics - the nature of plunder, which has a great possibility that leads to over-ambition. The appearance of imperialism in Meiji Period provided a foundation for the development of militarism, including the policy like enriching the country and strengthening the military. Later on in Taisho Period, the mainstream was to overthrow the legacy from Meiji Period and implemented Mikado Democracy. However, because of the dramatically falling orders of military supplies in World War I and the declining prices, as well as social contradictions and international conflicts that raised by the world economic crisis, autocratic Fascism appeared (Zhao 206). The appearance of Fascism redeveloped nationalism, and triggered the appearance of Pan-Asianism, which considered that Japan was the hero who could protect yellow from the invasion of white, and Japanese spirit was needed to be widespread in order to save Asia. The popularization of this theory brought a huge illusion to Japanese society - they were the one who should rule the world, which leaded Japanese ambition to a higher level. In this book, the impact of Pan-Asianism also shows - Ishigami also sees himself as the hero of Yauko. In order to protect her, he also sacrifices himself to achieve his goal. As well as that, the influence of militarism also brings Ishigami an illusion of having the huge power - he thinks that he have the power of manipulating Yasuko as well as the possessiveness towards her, which indicates his over-ambition.

By the 1930s, Fascists reigned Japan, and spread Fascism, which not only contained the nature of domestic dictatorship and foreign expansion, but also combined with native theories including Bushido, Shinto and Zen to brainwash Japaneses. Fascists encouraged Japaneses should be brave to sacrifice themselves to save the country and to spread out Japanese spirit, which triggers an important aspect of Japaneses characteristic - a strong sense of obligation. So does Ishigami. Once he sees Yasuko as his responsibility, he will do everything to help her, even though what he does is unethical. Because of the dilemma at that time, this theory was gradually accepted by those who were eager to have a renovation. Then, military headquarters in Japan started to control people’s minds by interfering their lives and religious beliefs. Under the environment of persecution and suppression, many left-wingers had no choices but turned to the right in order to save their lives and protect their family. For the purpose of beautifying the war, Japanese militarists brainwashed the public and convince them to believe that Japan was not satisfying its desire of ruling the world, but was aiming for national defense and other countries’ liberation. What Ishigami does to Yasuko is actually the same - he covers the crime for her with a seemingly good reason; but in fact he does this just for satisfying his desire, which is to manipulate her. This type of movement triggered the appearance of ethnocentrism as well as the craze to the war, which even stimulated Japanese ambition to hit a new height. In a word, the manifestation of imperialism in Japan is basically militarism, which contributes significantly to form the characteristic of over-ambition.

Additionally, the characteristic of over-ambition also affect people to have abnormal attitudes toward love. For the main character Ishigami, he gives up everything and even sacrifices his own life to cover the crime for Yasuko (the woman he loves) because of his strong desire of making a connection with her as well as to satisfy the need of performing his ability by using her as a tool to achieve to his goal, which is an obvious signal of over-ambition. In fact, Ishigami’s love to Yasuko is not a true love, but a sense of controlling. Once he forms a relationship with her by covering the crime for her, he is able to dominate this relationship and consider himself as a hero to her. Why someone wants to keep a controlling relationship? The root cause is that they want to get a grip to feel connected, to feel close, to feel right (Evans 113). Everyone is born with four functions: feeling, sensate, intuitive, and thinking. They allow us to be connected to themselves (38). Once one of these four functions is missing or being weaken, people will not be able to have self-connections.