Ken Nasukawa

A fourteen year old "boy" killed his father in the basement of his house in Isesakicho, Yokohama. The novel "Gold Rush" analyzes how crimes happen by centering on this event. "Why dose one kill?" The answers can be easily explained in most cases. But the novelist Miri Yu shows us an answer which is different from the ordinary viewpoint.

The novel was written in response to the murder case which recently occurred in Kobe. Yu tells us when the fictional boy in the novel or the real boy in Kobe commit their crimes, things which directly cause them are not abnormal. A key phrase in the novel "darkness of heart" is the true motive of murder. But Yu states in another essay that she found it's also the darkness possessed by herself when she learned of the crime. Not only Yu, but all human beings have "darkness of heart" and there are inhumane desires and feelings which can be the reasons of crimes, but it's rather normal. But those feelings for ordinary people never connect to direct criminal behaviors.

If this is so, what is the difference between ordinary people and criminals? In the process of the boy in her novel turning to crime, the main factor is not the "darkness of heart" but the environment around him, she indicates in the novel. His home was corrupt. His arrogant father, a man of power, had no regard for his family. His sister spent all her time as a prostitute, and nothing else. His mother left home, imbued with a new religion. His brother is mentally handicapped. There was no one who "forbade" him in important matters during his infantile period. The other is his living area, Koganemachi. There is the pinball parlor that his father runs in the town, but it is also a town like a rubbish heap where sex and drugs are available also. He was given no opportunities to learn things such as morality or sociability or to control his own emotions.

If we think of real society as same as the novel, we find her warning that phenomena such as the father's loss of respect, a loss of confidence in the discipline, and the abandonment of parents' duty to educate their children contain dangers which can affect crime. Yu says, "The economic Bubble era was like a Gold Rush. Everyone put money, land and luxuries at the center of importance, and rushed there. As a result, we might lose, or kill something." Such bad values at that time may be reflected in present‐day children through adults who experienced the Bubble. She also says, "I think there is no era like today; There has never been any era where what was once natural became unnatural until now." At the end of the essay she said she'll continue writing on this theme.

Quotation ; Media Factory 1999 "Da・Vinci" No,58