AN ANALYSIS OF THE SHORT STORY THE SAVAGE MOUTH BY SAKYO KOMATSU
AN ANALYSIS OF THE SHORT STORY THE SAVAGE MOUTH BY SAKYO KOMATSU

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Japanese science fiction short story The Savage Mouth by Sakyo Komatsu, focusing on the dilemma of the main character regarding, mainly, the absurdity, lack of meaning, worthlessness not just of the world, but also his own worthlessness. Faced with issues that belong to the areas of psychoanalysis and philosophy, which provide the methodological framework of analysis, the main character decides to destroy not the world, but his own body, by gradually eating himself up. His anger at the world directed at his own body resonates with the phenomenological lack of separation between the body and the world. The situation of the main character is interpreted according to a number of hypotheses, as his existential dilemmas lie at the core of the short story.

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