Naoya Shiga (1883-1971) is regarded as one of the early masters of modern Japanese fiction, and had a profound influence on 20th century Japanese fiction (West, Hair and Hartnett 214). In his twenties, he became involved in the Shirakaba (“White Birch”) literary movement (214). Writing and publishing many of his short stories beginning in 1910, including Han’s Crime which was released in 1913, Shiga continued writing, and publishing well into his later life. Han’s Crime became a success soon after its publication. Known to use crime in his short fiction, critics pointed out that Han’s crime illustrated Shiga’s psychological probing style of writing, versus the story being detection motivated.
In the story Han’s Crime, Shiga tries to mystify the death of Han’s wife, as to whether the crime was intentional or unintentional. When conducting the analysis, it seems certain that Han, a young,…show more content… He admits that he stopped loving his wife after the death of the infant, which was conceived with the help of her cousin. Implying that his wife never really loved him and ever since the baby passed away, she was cruel to him, silently observing him while his life went on a path of destruction. The fact that she deceived him regarding the baby’s biological origin and the subsequent resentment he felt towards her could justify the killing as an act of revenge. Additionally, during his confession, he often entertained thoughts of living his life alone. Having had thoughts of killing her the night before the show, he did not go through with the idea. Suffering from sleep deprivation due to recurring nightmares, after the notion of killing his wife disappeared, he was overcome with a feeling of despair. Realizing he was unable to bring about any change in his life if he remained married, these kinds of thoughts may have influenced him to murder his