The Morality of “Run, Melos!”

The Morality of “Run, Melos!”

Volume 3 Number 1, Spring 2012 pp. 57-71(15)
Research Article
2012/3/1
Askew, Rie Kido
This paper will examine the short story “Run, Melos!” (Hashire Merosu, 1940) by Dazai Osamu, focusing on the morality of the text. The story, based on an ancient Greek legend, is often considered 'moral' because it celebrates the virtues of trust and loyalty. In this paper, though, I will show that the morality of this story, as written by Dazai, is more complex than a simple contrast between goodness and evil, because Dazai felt that true morality was not inherent in an individual, but needed to be learned and developed through experience and self-examination. I will show how Dazai's philosophy of morality resulted in the depiction of characters more complex than in earlier versions of the story.
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