Han's Crime

The circus director and the assistant emphasise Han's professionalism, his educated, good manners, and his impeccable conduct.

Asked by the judge, Han admits freely that he felt no sorrow after his wife's death.

The judge sends Han out of the room and, suddenly feeling agitated, declares him not guilty.

[3][4] In later years, literary historians pointed out the protagonist's rejection of an imposed moral consciousness or viewing life and identity as causal continuities,[5] the rejection of the notion that a judgment can be other than arbitrary,[6] the demonstration of the inability of an organised society to deal with individual truthfulness,[7] and an influence of Friedrich Nietzsche's "superman" who defines his own morality.

[8] Han's Crime has been translated into English by Ivan Morris for the 1956 anthology Modern Japanese Literature[9] and by Lane Dunlop for the 1987 Nayoa Shiga short story collection The Paper Door and Other Stories.