Although No Longer Human primarily focuses on social isolation, the novel also considers the kinds of connection that are still available to people who feel alienated and alone. Yozo, for instance, is so estranged from everyone around him that he legitimately fears other human beings—and yet, he still experiences moments of connection throughout the novel. In general, the most meaningful relationships he forms are built on a sense of mutual suffering. For example, he falls in love with a young woman named Tsuneko, and their bond is primarily rooted in their shared sense of despair. After spending a night listening to Tsuneko talk about how sad she is, Yozo experiences a “feeling of comradeship for [a] fellow-sufferer,” ultimately suggesting that he is capable of sharing a bond with another person—it’s just that this bond is predicated on mutual feelings of sorrow. After all, meeting somebody like Tsuneko is arguably the only way for Yozo to feel less alone and alienated from the rest of society, since he finally feels as if someone shares his turbulent emotions. In a way, then, finding a “fellow-sufferer” is like finding compassion: Yozo and Tsuneko can commiserate with each other and thus ease the emotional burden of feeling alone in the world.
Similarly, Yozo later feels connected to an elderly pharmacist because he can instantly tell she’s unhappy. “Unhappy people are sensitive to the unhappiness of others,” he thinks, confirming that he experiences compassion and empathy when he meets people who seem as depressed as him. This, however, is not to say that Yozo’s relationships with other unhappy people improve his outlook on life—in fact, both his relationship with Tsuneko and his acquaintance with the pharmacist lead to disastrous results. Nonetheless, the mere fact that he connects with them at all suggests that it’s possible for even the most lonely, alienated people to find camaraderie, even if that camaraderie is based in mutual suffering.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compassion and Mutual Suffering ThemeTracker
Compassion and Mutual Suffering Quotes in No Longer Human
I got to my feet with a rueful smile and was brushing the sand from my pants when Takeichi, who had crept up from somewhere behind, poked me in the back. He murmured, “You did it on purpose.”
I trembled all over. I might have guessed that someone would detect that I had deliberately missed the bar, but that Takeichi should have been the one came as a bolt from the blue. I felt as if I had seen the world before me burst in an instant into the raging flames of hell. It was all I could do to suppress a wild shriek of terror.
There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes. And the more nervous they are—the quicker to take fright—the more violent they pray that every storm will be…Painters who have had this mentality, after repeated wounds and intimidations at the hands of the apparitions called human beings, have often come to believe in phantasms—they plainly saw monsters in broad daylight, in the midst of nature. And they did not fob people off with clowning; they did their best to depict these monsters just as they had appeared.
I drank the liquor. She did not intimidate me, and I felt no obligation to perform my clownish antics for her. I drank in silence, not bothering to hide the taciturnity and gloominess which were my true nature.
It was entirely different from the feeling of being able to sleep soundly which I had experienced in the arms of those idiot-prostitutes (for one thing, the prostitutes were cheerful); the night I spent with that criminal’s wife was for me a night of liberation and happiness. (The use of so bold a word, affirmatively, without hesitation, will not, I imagine, recur in these notebooks.)
It was because I felt sorry for Tsuneko, sorry that she should be obliged to accept Horiki’s savage kisses while I watched. Once she had been defiled by Horiki she would no doubt have to leave me. But my ardor was not positive enough for me to stop Tsuneko. I experienced an instant of shock at her unhappiness; I thought, “It’s all over now.” Then, the next moment, I meekly, helplessly resigned myself. I looked from Horiki to Tsuneko. I grinned.
Yes, just as Horiki had said, she really was a tired, poverty-stricken woman and nothing more. But this thought itself was accompanied by a welling-up of a feeling of comradeship for this fellow-sufferer from poverty. (The clash between rich and poor is a hackneyed enough subject, but I am now convinced that it really is one of the eternal themes of drama.) I felt pity for Tsuneko; for the first time in my life I was conscious of a positive (if feeble) movement of love in my heart. I vomited. I passed out. This was also the first time I had ever drunk so much as to lose consciousness.
She lay down beside me. Towards dawn she pronounced for the first time the word “death.” She too seemed to be weary beyond endurance of the task of being a human being; and when I reflected on my dread of the world and its bothersomeness, on money, the movement, women, my studies, it seemed impossible that I could go on living. I consented easily to her proposal.
Why, I wonder, couldn’t he have mentioned the simple fact that the money would be forthcoming from home? That one fact would probably have settled my feelings, but I was left in a fog.
“How about it? Have you anything which might be described as aspirations for the future? I suppose one can’t expect people one helps to understand how difficult it is to help another person.”
(They were happy, the two of them. I’d been a fool to come between them. I might destroy them. I might destroy them both if I were not careful. A humble happiness. A good mother and child. […]
The voice of a resistance weak but desperate spoke from somewhere in my heart. It said that I had not caused anyone to die, that I had not lifted money from anyone—but once again the ingrained habit of considering myself evil took command.
She stood ramrod stiff. But in her wide-open eyes there was no trace of alarm or dislike; her look spoke of longing, almost of the seeking for salvation. I thought, “She must be unhappy too. Unhappy people are sensitive to the unhappiness of others.” Not until then did I happen to notice that she stood with difficulty, supporting herself on crutches. I suppressed a desire to run up beside her, but I could not take my eyes from her face. I felt tears starting, and saw then the tears brimming from her big eyes.
Horiki sat in front of me and said, with a gentle smile, the like of which I had never before seen on his face, “I hear you’ve coughed blood.” I felt so grateful, so happy for that gentle smile that I averted my face and wept. I was completely shattered and smothered by that one gentle smile.
This was a really rare event. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that it was the one and only time in my life that I refused something offered to me. My unhappiness was the unhappiness of a person who could not say no. I had been intimidated by the fear that if I declined something offered me, a yawning crevice would open between the other person’s heart and myself which could never be mended through all eternity.
