THE BOX MAN by KOBO ABE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE BOX MAN by KOBO ABE

SUMMARY

It begins with a police introduction report, detailing the treatment of “vagrants” by japanese police. Among the homeless was a “box man”, and the police report begins to detail how the box in question is made.  It takes courage, the narrator says, to put the box on, partly because box men stick out in public, because he is conspicuous for trying to conceal himself.  In one example, a box man was annoying a tenant, and after unsuccessful pleas to friends, neighbors, and police, the tenant ends up shooting the man with an air rifle. Days pass, and the man is plagued by paranoia.   He believes that the ricochet of the bullet is bouncing around in his head, buys a new refrigerator, and gradually begins to hide in the box, abandoning his apartment for the streets.

The man in the box reveals himself to be the narrator, and details an anonymous offer he's received from a nurse to abandon his box for five thousand yen, which translates to 51 dollars today, but the novel is set in 1973. He discovers that another man has accepted the offer, and he watches the other box man talk with the nurse while he develops strong feelings for the young nurse, who is conducting a study on behalf of a doctor. The other box man turns out to be a famous photographer who suddenly quit his profession to become a box man, and, through his story, the narrator realizes that he was the one who shot the photographer. Before the photographer can reveal him to be the killer, he attacks, shooting the worn-out box man, but not fatally, and then attacking the doctor.

Next, the doctor gives an affidavit about this incident, reporting the reasoning behind his study, including the fact that he, the doctor, has been struggling with the temptation of becoming a box man, and was studying box men in order to learn how to fight his psychological issues. The man does not have a name that he can give to police, because he has been practicing under the name of his mentor. His mentor was declining, and the nameless doctor believed he was helping by feeding the old man drugs, and eventually, he began sleeping with the old man's much younger wife, the nurse. The old man convinced himself that his wife was working for him by sleeping with the nameless doctor, even though this was not the case. The doctor describes the process he anticipates the police will take in killing him and in disposing of his body. He recalls the process he and the nurse went through to dispose of the old man.

A story begins about a young boy who is in love with his piano teacher. He goes to her house to spy on her naked but she catches him, and makes him strip in front of her. The boy takes off his clothes and begins ejaculating uncontrollably, and awakens from his daydream, urinating in front of the nurse. They run away together and begin living in the old doctor's abandoned practice. She is naked, and he is naked within his box. Against his wishes, she puts her clothes back on, and he proceeds to block any exit from the practice. The young nurse flings herself off of a balcony that he didn't know existed, as it is hidden by trash.

ANALYSIS

You cannot control every aspect of the world. You, as an adult, need to grow up, learn to accept the things you cannot change, and take it upon yourself to change the things you can. I am lucky in this pursuit, as I have religion to give me strength. Yes, my analysis is based on the stereotypical AA mantra, but I am not an alcoholic.

• a man who has a disease which causes him to hide in a cardboard box in public is introduced 
• the process of the development of the disease is discussed 
• the people with the disease eventually kill themselves 
• paranoia and social inversion are the destruction of man 
• part of the cause behind this public shyness is discomfort with our naked bodies 

SOURCE
Abe, Kōbō. The Box Man. New York: Knopf; [distributed by Random House, 1974. Print.  Book about a rare disease which makes people introverted and ultimately suicidal.