He was a descendant of Natsume Yoshinobu, a Sengoku period samurai and retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu. His father, a powerful and wealthy nanushi, owned all land from Ushigome to Takadanobaba in Edo and handled most civil lawsuits at his doorstep. By exploring the historical and literary legacies of Nogi, Ogai, and Soseki from an interdisciplinary perspective, ''Suicidal Honor'' illuminates Japan's prolonged and painful transition from the idealized heroic world of samurai culture to the mundane anxieties of modernity.Natsume Kin'nosuke was born on 9 February 1867 in the town of Babashita, Ushigome, Edo (present Kikui, Shinjuku, Tokyo), the fifth son of village head ( nanushi) Natsume Kohē Naokatsu and his wife Chie. Scholars routinely mention this reference, but Bargen demonstrates the ways in which Soseki's agonized response to Nogi's suicide structures the entire novel.

The protagonist of Kokoro, Soseki's masterpiece, refers to the general's junshi before taking his own life. Ogai's historical fiction is a profound meditation on the significance of ritual suicide in a time of historical transition. In the second half of ''Suicidal Honor'', Bargen turns to the extraordinary influence of the Nogis' deaths on two of Japan's greatest writers, Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki. Doris Bargen, in the first half of her book, demonstrates that the deeper significance of Nogi's action must be sought in his personal history, enmeshed as it was in the tumultuous politics of the Meiji period. The violence of their double suicide shocked the nation. The revered military hero's wife joined in his act of junshi (''following one's lord into death''). On September 13, 1912, the day of Emperor Meiji's funeral, General Nogi Maresuke committed ritual suicide by seppuku (disembowelment).

Coda: last stands in ancient Rome and modern Japan.

'Okitsu Yagoemon no isho' (first version): junshi postponed 'Sahashi Jingorō': anything but seppuku 'Okitsu Yagoemon no isho' (second version): a spectacle for the lord's successor 'Abe ichizoku': the perplexities of permission Mori Ōgai's 'Sakai jiken': rebellion and martyrdom Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro: living as though dead

Nogi's life sentences The sword and the brush Sacrifice and self-sacrifice The Japanese custom of junshi Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p.

Natsume sōseki's kokoro