Tōson Shimazaki’s Hakai (The Broken Commandment) is a novel depicting the conflict experienced by a young teacher, Ushimatsu Segawa, who hides his identity as a Burakumin. First published in 1906, it was adapted into films in 1948, 1962, and 2022.

Admonished by his father not to reveal his origins, Ushimatsu lives as a conscientious teacher, but struggles with living a false life while influenced by anti-discrimination thinkers. Eventually, he decides to confess the truth, and despite losing his social status, travels to America in search of a new life.

1His father’s reason for “not revealing his origins” reflects the reality of Japanese society at the time. He feared that if his origins were revealed, Ushimatsu’s very life could be destroyed: he would be forced to quit his teaching job, unable to marry, and ostracized from society. Precisely because his father himself had experienced the horrors of discrimination, it was a sad form of “survival wisdom” designed to protect his son. Born out of resignation to a discriminatory society, it was based on the realistic judgment that “society cannot easily change through individual courage alone,” and also a heartfelt wish that “survival comes before honesty.” His father’s precepts are not ideals, but rather “precepts for adapting to reality.”

Ushimatsu adheres to his father’s commandment, not revealing his background, and continues to interact with children as a teacher. However, rumors begin to spread around Ushimatsu that there are Burakumin among the teachers, and these suspicion gradually turns toward Ushimatsu. Faced with this reality of discrimination, he finally decides to break his “father’s commandment,” quietly telling the students he teaches that he is sorry for hiding the “truth.” He then kneels down and apologizes. It is a shocking scene.

While this novel is read as a “Buraku novel,” some also view it as a piece of literature that depicts the impasse of modern Japanese society through the defeat of Ushimatsu, a young teacher from a Buraku. I support the latter view. I would like to summarize my reasons for this as follows:

1) Tōson’s interest is not directed toward the “Burakumin” themselves. Hakai barely depicts the living environment of Burakumin, the culture and human relationships within the community, or the economic realities. This may be because Tōson intentionally chose not to depict them. Tōson’s interest is directed not so much toward the reality of Burakumin communities themselves, but toward the structures of modern society that conceal them and reproduce discrimination.

Ushimatsu is positioned not as a concrete representation of a Burakumin, but as a “modern subject” who is trying to adapt to modern Japanese society but is unable to do so. 2) Discrimination is portrayed not as a “relic of pre-modernity,” but as a product of modernity. What is important in Hakai is the society that exists in the background, following the Emancipation Edict issued by the Meiji government. It is ostensibly a “new” nation where the feudal class system has been abolished. Despite this, discrimination is reproduced more than ever. The general public is portrayed as cruel “discriminating subjects.” In other words, Tōson portrayed discrimination not as a remnant of feudalism, but as something that was reorganized within the nation-state that was supposed to overcome discrimination. This is expressed as the process by which modern institutions such as the nation-state, the school system, work ethics, and moral education excluded Ushimatsu.

3) Ushimatsu’s tragedy demonstrates the impossibility of Burakumins becoming “genuine Japanese.” As a teacher, Ushimatsu embodies national values ​​and is a young man who has internalized modern ideals such as “social advancement” and “character development.” In other words, he is portrayed as the subject who most closely approximates the “model citizen” required by modern Japan. However, even he cannot escape the guilt of being a “false citizen” as long as he conceals his origins. Furthermore, if he were to confess his origins, he would be immediately excluded from the national community.

This illustrates the structural aporia that Burakumin, no matter what choice they make, cannot become “genuine citizens” as long as they remain within modern Japan. In modern Japan, the conditions for “becoming genuine Japanese” are extremely exclusive, and neither concealing nor disclosing one’s origins guarantees national legitimacy. Ushimatsu’s tragedy most succinctly visualizes the violence inherent in the very conditions for the establishment of the modern nation-state.

4) America functions as a device for representing the “outside of modern Japan” As described above, Ushimatsu faces an aporia that will never be resolved as long as he remains within modern Japan. His journey to America is nothing more than the result of this ideological and institutional impasse expressed as a spatial movement—“leaving Japan.”

Importantly, America is not specifically portrayed as a place of salvation in the novel. Life and value systems in America are barely mentioned, and it is never presented simply as a place of hope. Rather, America functions as an “outside” beyond the reach of the nation-state logic of modern Japan. In other words, the point at which the subject, unable to become a citizen even after engaging in the utmost self-denial of prostrating himself before his students, is forced to choose to withdraw from modern Japan itself, is symbolized by geographical movement.

Therefore, it is inappropriate to understand Ushimatsu’s journey to America as a simple escape from Buraku discrimination. Rather, it should be seen as a spatial expression at the end of the story of the negative conclusion that the subject that modern Japan itself formed was ultimately unable to belong to, or be included within, the society it had produced.

At this point, astute readers will also recognize limitations of Tōson Shimazaki. He reduces the Burakumin to a metaphor too much. By paying little attention to—or intentionally omitting—the lived realities of Burakumin communities, the reality of structural discrimination and its harms risks being consumed as ideological material. In other words, the metaphor of Ushimatsu allows Hakai to be presented as a critique of modernity, but there is a tension here: perhaps this comes at the expense of the realities of the people involved. This is likely the very reason why the members of the Burakumin in Shinshu (present-day Nagano Prefecture), the region associated with the writing of Hakai, came to shun Tōson.

Still, rather than reducing Hakai to a mere social problem novel, I would like to read it as a literary work that considers the Burakumin as a “method” rather than a “theme,” and questions the very conditions under which modern Japan was established. In other words, Tōson’s work ultimately depicts the paradox that modern Japan, while creating subjects, destroys them.