Capitalism Ideology Definition of Terms
proof that one country is living in prosperity. Moreover, she does not set the parameter of prosperous living and welfare to begin with.
At the end of the analysis Mardiana concludes that Kappaland and Japan are different in a way that Kappaland had developed to be a wealthy and
prosperous country based on its industrialization and mechanized manufacturing, while in Japan the political condition was still in an unstable condition that the
problems of infanticide, family, and abortion rose. In short, she asserts that Kappas relatively have shared a prosperous living because of he significant
growth of industrialization, while Japan was still in the transformation to modernity as in 1920s she was in economic stagnation.
The second related study is conducted by Ho Koon-ki entitled Kappa as a Dystopia: A study of Ak
utagawa’s Anti-utopian Thought. He examines Kappa as a literary expression of Akutagawa‟s vision of a malevolent society, or a dystopia.
In Kappa according to Koon-ki, the influence of Jonathan Swift is especially prominent and important. Often, Kappa is r
egarded as „Gulliver in a Kimono‟, specifically after an article reviewing the first English translation of Kappa in
Time magazine under the title „Guliver in the Kimono‟appeared.
Koon-ki asserts that despite the fact that an intimate relation can be identified between Kappa and some Western utopian fiction, not a single critic,
has ever argued that Kappaland is a utopia as the term is used to mean ideal commonwealth. This is the reason behind his attempts to conduct this research.
Kappa demonstrated the conviction that unless human nature changes, a perfect PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
utopia is not possible. Koon-ki argues that Akutagawa attributed nearly all miseries in life to the faults of human nature 1993:48
In Akutagawa‟s conviction, a genuine utopia is impossible, for human nature is fundamentally incompatible with any utopian order and will therefore
thwart any effort for utopian ends. However, he believed that the plot of the story, therefore, highly resembles a typical utopia under the analysis that after tiring life
in Kappaland, the main character then disillusioned by the human society to which he returned. When the main character eventually decided to settle in Kappaland
and was prevented from doing so, he was caught on his way there and kept in a mental hospital thereafter Koon-ki, 1993:48.
Not only Western influence of Swift, Akutagawa is hypothesized to be influenced by the Chinese literature, for he was not only an avid reader of Chinese
literature, but also had made use of Chinese materials in writing his stories. His Kappa story has something in common with The Story of the Peach Blossom
Spring which contains utopian paradise as the setting. In his study, Koon-ki argues that
What marks the utopian and dystopian fiction is really the continuity, the implied connection between the imaginary world described in the fiction
and the actual society to which the author belongs, whereas science fiction often projects new heavens and new hells based upon certain fantasy out
of the genres need to recast the physical reality. Kappa as belonging to the utopian genre is established by the mirror-image relationship between
Kappaland and Japan 1993:51.
In his analysis Koon-ki compares the similarities between Kappa and Jonathan Swift‟s Gulliver’s Travels. He finds that the possible influences from
Swift are the protagonist feeling of abhorrence at human appearance after he PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI