Loss of national identity as a crisis of self-identification in Kobo Abe’s short stiry “The Іntruders”

Abstract

The article examines the interplay of literary experimentation, philosophical inquiry, and critical reflection on sociocultural change in the works of Kobo Abe – one of the key representatives of Japanese modernism. Abe’s writing is dominated by motifs of loneliness, loss of identity, alienation, personal transformation, the search for the meaning of existence, psychological deformation caused by the modern city, and the collision between traditional Japanese mentality and the modern Western model. The article focuses on the analysis of identity-related problems in Kobo Abe’s short story “The Intruders”. The search for identity becomes a painful and paradoxical process in which the very existence of the “Self” is called into question. Through the motifs of alienation, intrusion, and the blurring of boundaries between “one’s own” and “the Other,” the study explores the crisis of national self-awareness experienced by Japanese society after World War II. The article demonstrates that Abe’s text functions as an allegory of the loss of cultural integrity, the erosion of traditional consciousness, and the confrontation with the dominance of Western cultural models. Thus, the writer addresses not only personal but also national issues of identity, revealed through the metaphor of losing control over one’s own space. Abe portrays Japan as a nation searching for itself in a new reality – between its traditional past and an imposed modern Western model. Consequently, the story can be interpreted as a philosophical reflection on boundaries, identity, and the fear of disappearance in the context of cultural transformation