UCLA

This thesis examines how historical, social, and political factors influence the creation of literary space, focusing on representations of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in modern Japanese literature. The works examined below are set in Hokkaido from the 1880s to the 1930s, and they all exhibit a certain ambiguous duality. This ambiguity derives from Hokkaido's dual position as an internal colony, simultaneously being both within sovereign borders and without as a colonial space. Given its status as an internal colony, however, the tension between naichi (mainland Japan) and Hokkaido gives rise to issues over national and ethnic authenticity. These issues of authenticity and belonging are encoded spatially in the texts, and in the dialectical relationship between naichi and Hokkaido, Japanese "authenticity" itself is created, questioned, or reaffirmed. Because of its nature, these works make up the first corpus of colonial literature of Japan. After the "Introduction," the works of Kunikida Doppo (1871-1908), Arishima Takeo (1878-1923), Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933), Itō Sei (1905-1969), and Honjō Mutsuo (1905-1939) will be examined.