Interpreting Dazai's Urashima san vis-à-vis the conventional tale

Urashima Taro is a well-known Japanese folktale of medieval times in Japan, which has traversed time to exist in the public memory through its retelling over time and as part of the school textbooks in Japan in the modern period (1868~). The folktale has also entered modern Japanese literature in the post war period through Dazai Osamu’s retelling in his collection Otogi Zoshi (Fairy tales) making it a work of modern Japanese literature. Dazai’s version of the tale comes alive due to interesting narration and conversations between the turtle and the protagonist, while keeping intact the basic storyline. The paper focusses on bringing to light how the story as retold by Dazai Osamu questions long-standing conventions of class-consciousness in society fuelled by the turtle’s questions and comments in conversation with Urashima Taro.