This essay begins humorously with an episode about back pain. Regardless of objectivity, most of the descriptions are likely based on true stories. However, in any true story, there is "intent" in the "choice" to place "me making people laugh with my back pain" at the very beginning of a paid article written over a decade later. And precisely because many of the experiences described are real, the story it "frames" sometimes possesses an undue authority and a reality that surpasses actual facts.
I proceeded to read this essay with the "somewhat mean-spirited eye" unique to a fellow professional.
When faced with this kind of essay, public reaction is usually split in two: those who sympathize and cry, and the cynical, reflexive dismissal of it as just another entry in the "toxic parent" genre. I take neither side. Like a pathologist with a scalpel, I will read the structure itself—and only the structure.
This is because the "most terrifying design" of this work lies in the fact that the purpose of the first two paragraphs available for free is not actually an "introduction," but rather the "acquittal of Yoshimoto." That verdict is being distributed for free, prior to the evidence (the paid portion). I will now dissect that verdict.
Chapter 1: The "Substitution of the Problem" through "Because I Love Life"
Let us re-read the quoted line from Lhenen accurately. Whether your sister lives or dies, what does that have to do with you?—This is absolutely not a suggestion to "wish for your sister's death." This is provocative advice about detachment. Do not carry your sister's life or death as a burden on your own life. Let go of the attachment. That is "all" Lhenen said.
However, Yoshimoto immediately substitutes this message of "separating yourself from your sister" with "Should I then wish for my sister's death?" Then, after high-mindedly and unilaterally posing the question herself, she rejects it—saying she simply cannot wish for someone's death because she loves life. No one was making the value of life or her likes and dislikes the issue.
The essence of the problem faced by this essay, the author Banana Yoshimoto, and her family, is naturally not there. Neither she nor her sister should be saved by such an abstract theme as the "problem of life" (and Yoshimoto herself knows this well, or has strategically constructed the opening text with that in mind).
This is the "first fallacy" that operates in this essay. Logic calls this the fallacy of equivocation. "Drawing a boundary" and "wishing for death"—two completely different acts—are suddenly treated as the same thing. What allows this substitution to stand is a hidden (and false) premise that is never explicitly written in the text.
[False Premise] Stopping self-sacrifice = Wishing for your sister's death
Of course, drawing a boundary between your sister and yourself and wishing for her death are on completely different layers. A person can draw a boundary while still sincerely loving life. There is an almost infinite distance between "pulling out" before going bankrupt and "wishing for a sister's death."
Yet, the opening text uses rhetoric to compress that distance to "almost zero." The act of drawing a boundary is surreptitiously rewritten as the act of "wishing for death." It is not that Yoshimoto couldn't draw a boundary. She substituted "not drawing a boundary" with the proposition of "not abandoning a life," thereby justifying it.
Whether this is a conscious calculation or a "cognitive distortion" of a family enmeshed with a sister where "pulling out = abandoning = death" truly feels that way out of a desire to be sincere, no one knows. I am not a fortune teller, and I cannot see inside her head. However, to use a bit of literary criticism rhetoric, the "effect of the opening text" and the "staging of the introduction" reaching the reader are certainly "choices." Yoshimoto likely moved readers who didn't notice that "drawing a boundary = wishing for death" is a "false equation" to tears with just this opening. And the "true self-sacrifice" Yoshimoto should pay has already been made invisible before the main text (the paid portion) even begins (I will detail what Yoshimoto is "running away" from later). Even if there was no conscious intent, or if that intent was based on sincere motives, the rhetoric of mixing "sophistry" into the opening of a commercial product is, after all, a "choice" as a writer.
Furthermore, Yoshimoto's skill at "self-justification" is terrifyingly sophisticated. She first anticipates the "logical arguments" of critics and piles them up herself. You've done enough, leave it to the government, live your own life. She nods, saying she "heartily agrees" with all of it, and even goes as far as to name the things she lacks—the firm attitude of "not giving what you don't have" and "valuing oneself"—with her own mouth.
While this appears to be an accepting attitude open to others, it is actually a very clever "declaration of war stating 'I will not change'." By naming her own flaws, Yoshimoto is solidifying her problems from "choices that could be changed" into an "unchangeable nature." Self-awareness is being diverted from a first step toward change into a basis for resignation.
I understand too, but I just can't do it—before this sentence structure, the criticism of others can only hit empty air. By shooting herself first, she nullifies the bullets (criticism) of others. However, when reading the text logically, Yoshimoto is merely attempting self-justification using sincerity as a shield, essentially saying, "I have already worried and been hurt enough. Therefore, there is no need to change."
There is one more phrase that must not be overlooked: "Leave it to the government." This is one of the few moments where "public assistance" appears throughout this entire essay. And the moment it appears, it is dismissed. It is quoted as someone else's line, nodded at, and then never considered again. The perspective of public assistance is excluded early on in the free portion of the note.
This is a part of the "invisibilization" by Yoshimoto that I pointed out earlier. I intend to analyze this invisibilized thought of Yoshimoto (or the hole in it) once more in the third part.
Finally, I will mention the finishing blow, the killer word: "Because I love life."
In social psychology and cult studies, this is a type of what is called a thought-terminating cliché. Think about it. Who can go against the love for life? It is the largest, most beautiful, and most universal love that is impossible to refute. Yes, Yoshimoto has once again "chosen" a word that is far too "universal."
And this spell simultaneously completes the "moralization of self-interest." The extremely personal problem of being unable to separate oneself from others—likely an unhealthy family relationship—is "whitewashed" into a virtue of "respect for life" that everyone must bow down to. The situation of "continuing to support a sister until bankruptcy," which is originally purely economic and pathological, is substituted through the abstract theory that "life should be loved" into a trope of a beautiful story: "Therefore, I will not abandon my sister," as if it were a logical necessity.
In other words, the free opening text is performing what psychology calls framing. We do not yet know what is being contested within the family at this stage. However, how the reader "should feel" has already been "designated" by Yoshimoto at this point.
As a writing technique to avoid backlash, it is skillful. But being a skillful writer and being a sincere person are, of course, two different things. Hiding behind the abstract word "life," what is Yoshimoto "running away" from? Why is the "choice" of "public assistance" excluded from this sixty-year "grotesque household ledger"?
I will now thoroughly dissect the main story.
Scheduled for update tomorrow. Please follow and wait.
Mitsuki Tsukishima
