The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away

It has been translated into English by John Nathan and was published in 1977 together with Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Prize Stock and Aghwee the Sky Monster.

Early on in the novel, the narrator associates his cancer with the imperial symbols, calling it, "a flourishing bed of yellow hyacinth or possibly chrysanthemums bathed in a faint purple light".

He fantasises about obtaining revenge on his hated mother by summoning her to attend his death, and in his narrative tries to recreate his earlier "Happy Days" of the latter years of the Second World War.

He also remembers that by the end of the war he had picked up that his mother's real father had been executed for participating in a revolt against the emperor in 1912.

The narrator's father was 'associated with the military', and was part of an anti-Tojo movement in the Kanto Army to promote General Ishiwara; after the plan failed, he returned to the village on New Year's Day 1943 and shut himself up in the storehouse.

Both parents sent telegrams to contacts in the army: the mother to help her stepson escape, and the father to preserve the family honour by having him shot.

Another line from the same cantata is: "Da wischt mir die Tränen mein Heiland selbst ab" (My saviour himself shall wipe my tears away).

Like other commentators, he sees the novel as a response to, and parody of, the militarism of Yukio Mishima, whose failed coup and suicide had taken place in 1970, the same year in which Oe sets his story.

The executor asks about parts of the story omitted by the narrator, and suggests that he is hiding "unpleasant memories... creating the bloated feeling"[11] Her comments also prompt observations from the narrator on his own story: when she questions his continual use of the term "a certain party" instead of "father", he responds that, "To make someone sound like an imaginary figure can be a way of debasing him, but it can also be a way of exalting him into a kind of idol".

[11] Michiko Wilson amplifies this latter point, arguing that this terminology furthers the identification of the father with the emperor, as he is traditionally not referred to by name.

Beyond the obvious satirical intent, she argues that these overlapping references are part of Oe's strategy of defamiliarisation, through which the reader is forced to look at events through fresh eyes.