Mori ougai(1862∼1922) is a literary man who had studied in German as a position of an army surgeon in the time of Meiji. After returning from German where he studied for 4 years, he published ?a dancer? which was written as a basis of his own experience in
German. He has treated the materials of his work as the his own experiences or elements of his own circumference, but the description of <the boat> appeared as several forms in the earlier and latter term of his literal ground. In this essay the essayist is now surveying the
symbolical meanings of <the boat> reflected in ?a dancer?.
Anyway the boat appeared in ?a dancer? is a ship which is symbolizing the modernization, but he describes the small boat instead of the large ship, so there is a some hidden intention of his own. The boats in which ?うたかたの記?, ?文づかひ? which are works of his earlier
term and the ?山椒大夫? which is the work of his latter term are described as <a ship>, <a boat> and <a small boat> according to the scale and form, but it is thought that he intentionally describes <the boat> in the ?a dancer?. We should give the focus on the point
that the boat in the development of the matters and the actions of characters of the work is not the ship or the small boat but the boat. The boat is important itself but we are able to see the writer"s intention which he focuses on the space, where the work will be creating
the actions of character in the work. Therefore the boat of the space is only the background and then we can see the writer"s intention which he would like to highlight the space in the boat. And then ougai expresses the boat of the space where Toyotaro , who is the hero in the work, exposes <the grudge> and for the first time Toyotaro realizes his own discoveries that he did his actions of "the passive and mechanical" life and the his own existence of <the weak heart> through <the boat>. And Toyotaro realizes the <the men"s knowing
grudge> in the time of boarding <the boat> for the first time. He did not want to tell this matter to the other men, but he can not be able to take <the boat> in this case of selecting a space. Toyotaro selects the middle class room in <the boat> as a space to expose his own
<the grudge> in the case like this. At this time, the writer looks at his mother country in <the boat> and expresses the awareness of his own crisis, and this means the awareness of the crisis facing the writer"s reality. The time when ougai began to write the 「a dancer」is
after two years returning from German, so that we can guess that the writer keenly felt to take the space where he expresses his own emotion facing the awareness of crisis in the reality. Thus the <the boat> which ougai chose is not simply the space but the writer
should want to take the <the boat> of space to expose his emotion effectively. Therefore <the boat> which is described in ?a dancer? is the space where Toyotaro realizes his own reality and exposes the remorses for the reality. And then the described space of his work
playes several roles to bestow the literary motive in the works.