Cover Luar Phenomena Vol 16 No. 2


Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

178 

Capitalism as an Ideology Criticized through Allegory in 
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Kappa 

Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 
elisa@usd.ac.id 
Department of English Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma 

Abstract 

Ryunosuke Akutagawa‟s novel entitled Kappa (1926) is believed to be the allegory of  
Japanesetructure of politics and the economy in the 20th century Japan. Yet, none of the study focused 
on describing the function of this allegorical Kappaland and its society to criticize the system of 
capitalism in Japan. Thus, the writer finds it important to scrutinize how the author of the story 
employs the allegory, as a rhetorical device of literary works, to criticize the reign of the dominant 
class in Japanese systems of politics and economy. 

Focusing on the allegorical characters, setting, and significant events, this study seek for, the 
evidence that Kappa is the representation of Japanese society. Some events are created to signify the 
real condition of Japan in the early of 20th  century, after the Meiji Restoration. The effect of 
industrial revolution brings several questions, including the role of the State and its apparatuses, to 
be problematized in this study. In addition, Akutagawa points out some of the lacks and 
shortcomings of humans through the allegorical characters and events in Kappaland. The settings 
are employed to show the life-likeness of Kappa and humans and support the wholeness of allegory. 
Analysis on parallelism of Kappaland and Japan is deemed important to reveal the criticism 
Akutagawa raises through the characters and the significant events. The setting of the story is pretty 
similar to what Japan was experienced, for instance the massive industrial production linked to the 
capitalist mode of production, the accumulation of power and wealth to the small amount of the 
dominant class. It is observed that Kappa is a disgusting and deformed mirror Akutagawa gives to 
humans to reflect their life. 

Keywords: capitalism, ideology, Akutagawa 

Introduction 

The idea of capitalism grew in Japan 
during the Meiji period (1868-1912), as the 
island empire emerged from over two 
centuries of feudal isolation. Japan realized 
that the Western countries were far more 
advanced in the economic and political 
matter. Then, to be advanced, they had to 
imitate the way Western countries run their 
economic affair. It then marked the rise of 
industrialization in Japan. Many businesses 
were developed; the chance to export goods 
to outside countries was widely open. 

During the time, the mode of production 
of Japanese society altered from the feudal to 
the capitalist mode of production. It was 
when the production of goods and materials 
no longer took place in the house of 
individuals as a home industry. Rather, the 
production was held in factories which were 
owned by individuals or groups who paid the 
people to work in their company. This is what 
Marx, describes as the system of production 
in which a number of craftsmen were 
assembled under one roof. This system had 
characterized the European industry from 
about the middle of the sixteenth century to 
the last third of the eighteenth century (Ike, 
1949:186). 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

179 

A well-known economic historian Takao 
Tsuchiya in Ike argued that Japanese industry 
had  not  been  sufficiently advanced  to  
develop  into  a  modern  capitalist industry 
on its own power. He asserted that the shift 
to modern factory industry had been 
achieved through the intervention of the 
Meiji government (1949:186). Many critics 
argue that the Japanese model of the 
economy is a state-sponsored capitalism, 
which means the economic system under the 
government investment to certain sectors of 
the economy to stimulate the industries in 
the private sector. “Industrialization in Japan 
produced a new economic elite who, as the 
leaders of modern business enterprise, were 
responsible for mobilizing the nation‟s 
resources and creating economic institutions 
suitable to an industrial society” (Marshall, 
1967:2). 

Japan was the only non-Western society 
to successfully industrialize in the 19th 
century (Fulcher, 2004:73). However, Japan 
manages a distinctive capitalism in which the 
state played a directive role and corporate 
concentration took the form of industry 
groups that expanded across the economy. 
The weakness of labor organization was 
another distinctive feature Japan had. 
Because of the growth of the machine, and 
above mentioned distinctive features were 
further developed during the postwar period, 
Japan maintained to grab the position as the 
second largest economy in the world  
(Fulcher, 2004:74). 

However, even if the state invested in the 
new or specific industries to stimulate the 
growth, on the practical level, the greater 
amount of capital remains privately owned. 
The capital, including the land and economic 
production, is not shared fairly for the greater 
good of every level of society. This case 
highlights the similar characteristic that is 
found under any kind of capitalism, the one 
that is held in the Western countries or in the 
East. The characteristic is, the working class 
is treated like commodity since they sell their 
labor power to the owner of land and capital. 
They are prone to suffer unemployment 
when their labor power brings no profit in 
the transaction. 

Within the Marxism discourse, the 
relation between the bourgeoisie, the 
dominant class who control and own the 
means of production, and the proletariat, the 
subordinate class who do not own and 
control the means of production, became the 
key concept to understand what is unfair 
under the capitalist system and industrial 
society. The capitalist class accumulates more 
and more wealth by running companies and 
taking advantage of the labour power from 
the working class, while the proletariat is 
forced by a socio-economic compulsion to sell 
its labour-power to the capitalist owners of 
the means of production. Contradictory 
character of capitalism manifests itself in the 
accumulation of wealth „at one pole‟, and of 
poverty and misery at the other (Giddens, 
1971:58). 

Such change in social, political, and 
economical condition is often recorded by 
some authors in their literary works as the 
response of that major alteration. At the end 
of Taisho period, Ryunosuke Akutagawa 
finished writing Kappa, a novel containing 17 
short chapters. Portraying the life of human 
from Japan who set foot in the land of Kappas, 
in which their existence is still disputable. 
Some similarities of Japanese society and 
events can be seen in the life of Kappas. 
However the different mentality of Kappas as 
a gap and the critics of Kappa upon the 
human condition, especially the political and 
economic condition, frequently emerge in the 
story. 

It was primarily put in by Taiji as “a 
distillation of the author‟s feeling of revulsion 
from the whole of human life” (Healey in 
Akutagawa, 2009:40). The novel was firstly 
published in Japan in March 1927. Kappa, 
according to Japanese folklore, is a scaly 
creature about the size of a small child, with a 
face like a tiger‟s and a sharply pointed beak 
(Healey in Akutagawa, 2009:35). 

Concerning the relation between literary 
works and politics Akutagawa points out that 
literature is not unrelated to politics; it is in 
fact one of the major characteristics of 
literature (Yu, 1972:50). His view is similar to 
what Luk{cs in Eagleton believes that “all 
great art is socially progressive in the sense 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

180 

that, whatever the author‟s conscious 
political allegiance, it realizes the vital 
„world-historical‟ forces of an epoch which 
make for change and growth, revealing their 
unfolding potential in its fullest complexity” 
(2002:27). 

 
To satirize the life of Japanese society 

during the rise of capitalism, Akutagawa used 
the symbol of kappa to portray how this 
ideology brings a great amount of privilege 
and power to the owner of the mode of 
production. Yu (1972:50) in his critical study 
of Akutagawa stated, “steeped in the tradition 
of Swift, Voltaire, France, and Shaw, 
Akutagawa also had an ability to adapt even 
fairy tales to his satirical purposes.” 

 
In his work, Akutagawa chose the role of 

capitalists, philosopher, judge, and several 
kinds of kappas to represent the human 
world in an exaggerating way. Some values in 
the human world and in the Kappaland are 
intentionally collided to make the readers 
think that there is something wrong with the 
system  working in the society and thus a 
moral reform is necessary to be pursued. Yu 
asserted that with Akutagawa‟s sense of wit 
and irony and his angle of vision, he was an 
accomplished satirist (1972:86). 

 
Under the light of Marxist literary 

criticism, this study concerns with the 
capitalist mode of production and the class 
oppression raised by Akutagawa in the novel, 
which is somewhat similar to the problem in 
the human world, specifically Japan as the 
home country of the main character and 
Akutagawa himself. This thesis focus on 
figuring out the parallelism used by 
Akutagawa and answering why he used the 
kappas as an allegory instead of projecting 
the problem with the human character. 

 
After proving that the characters in 

Kappa are the allegory of Japanese society, 
the writer then analyzes how capitalism as an 
ideology works in both Kappaland and 
Japanese especially in 1920s. This study is 
necessary to be taken because the writers 
want to prove that how the practice of 
capitalism in Japanese society raised during 
the 1920s documented in a literary work. 
Two particular points are going to be closely 

examined. The first is how the society of 
Japan is revealed through the allegory in the 
novel, and the second is how is capitalism as 
an ideolgy criticized through the allegory.  

 

Allegory 
 
Allegory is a form of extended metaphor 

in which objects, persons, and actions in a 
narrative, either in prose or verse, are 
equated with meanings that lie outside the 
narrative itself (Holman, 1960:11). The 
outcome of allegory is representing one thing 
in the guise of another, which forms an 
abstraction of a concrete image. The 
characters in the allegory are usually 
personifications of abstract qualities, the 
action and the setting representative of the 
relationships among these abstractions. 
Holman makes it clear that through the 
characters, events and setting created by the 
author, allegory is intended to reveal the 
meaning beneath the story. Such meaning 
may be religious, moral, political, personal, or 
satiric (1960:11). 

 
One might find difficulties in 

distinguishing allegory and symbol for these 
two literary devices suggest the other level of 
meaning. However, allegory differs from 
symbol in the sense that symbol is “an 
expression of experience perceived as self-
sufficient, completely adequate in itself” 
(Cowan, 1981:110). While, it is suggested by 
Holman that “an allegory the objective 
referent evoked is without value until it is 
translated into the fixed meanings that it has 
in its own particular structure of ideas” 
(1960:436). 

 
Literary allegory has been treated by 

turns as a genre, a mode, a technique, or a 
rhetorical device or trope, related to 
metaphor and sometimes defined as 
extended or continued metaphor. However, 
Boyd (1860: 86) argued that even if allegory 
is generally considered, as a continuation of 
metaphor, no continuation of metaphor ever 
becomes an allegory. He explains that there 
are several essential properties that 
distinguish allegory and metaphor. The 
essential features he points out is that 
allegory presents to immediate view of the 
secondary object only; metaphor always 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

181 

presents the primary also. Metaphor always 
imagines one thing to be another; allegory, 
never. Everything asserted in the allegory is 
applied to the secondary object; everything 
asserted in the metaphor is applied to the 
principal. In the metaphor there is but one 
meaning; in the allegory there are two, a 
literal and a figurative (1860: 86). 

As a rhetorical device, which is a means 
intended to influence people, allegory is 
suggested as “a paradigmatic instance of 
rhetoric and rhetorical language, of the sign 
whose meaning cannot be fixed but is 
continually deferred, both calling for and 
resisting interpretation” (Copeland, 2010:10). 
Additionally, it is argued that allegory, as a 
sign of deferred or absent meaning, has 
occupied a critical position, as the tropes of 
tropes, by its very name (“other-speaking‟) 
announcing itself as the definitive mark of the 
contingency of language and its referential 
claims. In relation to this issue, de Man 
famously suggests that “all reading, all critical 
practice, is allegoresis, that is allegorical 
interpretation” (Copeland, 2010:10). Thus, to 
get the sense of the meaning beyond the 
story, the readers might apply allegorical 
reading, a reading with the interest in 
locating some hidden, another meaning 
under the surface of a story or any literary 
works. 

To form an allegory, Boyd (1860: 86) 
proposes that “the mind must look out for a 
likeness that will correspond in a variety of 
circumstances, and form an independent 
whole”. His argument might explain the 
essential feature allegory employs, which is 
the likeliness of the story with the situations 
in the world of the author and the reader. It 
explains that there is a correspondence 
between an independent whole story of an 
allegory with the variety of circumstances 
happen in the world of human. This feature 
does not appear when one tries to employ 
metaphor. Boyd argues to form a metaphor, 
what writers should do is a slight exertion of 
imagination, and it requires no study. 

Another figure allegory has is that it 
should have a lively and interesting story as 
possible. Keeping the distinction between the 
figurative expression and the literal is 

essential. The distinction also functions to 
introduce nothing unsuitable to the nature, 
either the thing spoken of, or of the thing 
mentioned in an indirect way. In other word, 
the allegory should have its individuality and 
distinction with the reality of the author and 
the reader. Between the surface signifier and 
its hidden referent exists a bond of meaning 
that is not capricious, but rather essential 
(Fletcher, 1964:70). The true criterion for 
allegory Fletcher suggests: 

The whole point of the allegory is that it 
does not need to be read exegetically it 
often has a literal level that makes good 
enough sense all by itself. But somehow 
this literal surface suggests a peculiar 
doubleness of intention, and while it can, 
as it were, get along without 
interpretation, it becomes much richer 
and more interesting if given 
interpretation. Even the most deliberate 
fables, if read naively or carelessly, may 
seem mere stories, but what counts in our 
discussion is a structure that lends itself to 
a secondary reading, or rather, one that 
becomes stronger when given a secondary 
meaning as well as a primary reading 
(1964:7). 

An allegory becomes political if it covers 
a political event or situation by producing a 
subtle commentary on it using other symbols. 
The term political allegory can also be 
applied to the use of fictional characters as 
direct substitutions for real politicians. 
However, not all political allegory is intended. 
Using the objects, characters, figures or colors 
to represent an abstract idea or concepts, the 
author might use the allegory as a rhetorical 
device to criticize or satirize the political 
condition and the ruling government in their 
era. This is similar to the notion that allegory 
can function as “a means of making satire 
direct and immediate” Leyburn (1948: 329). 
Edgar Johnson in Leyburn suggests that there 
is always “the possibility of letting the author 
step aside from his allegorical structure and 
affords a detachment infinetely valuable to 
the satirist”(1948:329). 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

182 

Theory of Ideology 
 
According to Marx ideology is the system 

of the ideas and representations which 
dominate the mind of a man or a social group. 
There are three major characteristics of 
ideology when understood through Marxist 
perspective. Thefirst character is that to be of 
any value, ideology must reflect the real and 
practical social conditions within a society. 
The second, the social conditions in a society 
that serve as the basis for an ideological 
framework will reflect the productive forces 
in that society. The last is that an ideology 
that reflects productive forces will serve to 
promote the interest of the dominant social 
group or class within the relations of 
production (Spisso, 2006: 83-84). 

 
Ideology, for Althusser, is not a mere 

concept. It has a material existence, because 
“an ideology always exists in an apparatus, 
and its practice, or practices” (1971:112). His 
concept of Ideological State Apparatus, which 
is the apparatus of the state which 
contributes to the reproduction of the 
relation of production, i.e. of capitalist 
relations of exploitation, was the realization 
of ideology (the unity of these different 
regional ideologies religious, ethical, legal, 
political, aesthetic— being assured by their 
subjection to the ruling ideology). 

 
He presents two theses, in order to 

approach his central thesis on the structure 
and functioning of ideology. The first 
concerns the object which is “represented‟ in 
the imaginary form of ideology, the second 
concerns the materiality of ideology. His first 
thesis is that “ideology represents the 
imaginary relationship of individuals to their 
real condition of existence”. He argues that so 
many world outlooks are there in our life, for 
instance, what we commonly call religious 
ideology, ethical ideology or political 
ideology. These world outlooks, he argues, 
are largely imaginary, i.e. do not „correspond 
to reality‟. 

 
In other words, Althusser said that 

ideology constitute an illusion. It does make 
allusion to reality, and that they need only be 
“interpreted‟ to discover the reality of the 
world behind their imaginary representation 

of that world. What is reflected in the 
imaginary representation of the world found 
in an ideology is the conditions of existence of 
men, i.e. their real world. 

 
Althusser thesis supposes that “it is not 

their real conditions of existence, their real 
world, that „men‟ represent to themselves in 
ideology, but above all it is their relation to 
those conditions of existence which is 
represented to them there” (1971:164). What 
he means by the quotation above is that 
ideology is not a distorted image of reality, 
but rather an imaginary distortion of 
people‟s relation to reality. He further argues 
that what is represented in ideology is 
therefore not the system of the real relations 
which govern the existence of individuals, but 
the imaginary relation of those individuals to 
the real relations in which they live. 

 

Theory on State Apparatus 
 

1. Repressive State Apparatus 
 
Marxists classics in its theory of State 

claimed that the state is the repressive State 
apparatus. Meaning that the State always 
uses political and military force to control a 
group of people and restrict their freedom. In 
his attempt to explain how ideology works, 
French philosopher, Louis Althusser (1971) 
notes that this theory of States suggests 
several theses. 

 
First, state power and state apparatus 

must be distinguished. Second, the objective 
of the class struggle concerns State power, 
and in consequence the use of the State 
Apparatus by the classes (or alliance of 
classes or of fractions of classes) holding 
State power as a function of their class 
objectives; fourth, the proletariat must seize 
State power in order to destroy the existing 
bourgeois State apparatus and, in a first 
phase, replace it with a quite different, 
proletarian, State apparatus, then in the later 
phases set in motion a radical process, that of 
the destruction of the State (the end of State 
power, the end of every State apparatus). 

 
Althusser expands the theory of states in 

which he believes not only the state 
apparatus and the state power must be 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

183 

distinguished, the state apparatus also has 
two different groups that must be set apart. 
In his essay on Ideology, he proposes the idea 
of Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and 
Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). The 
definition of Repressive State Apparatus is 
generally similar to what Marxist theorists 
propose before him, which is any apparatuses 
controlling society‟sbehaviour and freedom 
using the means of repression. 

He claims that all the state apparatuses 
function both by repression and by ideology, 
with the difference that the Repressive State 
Apparatus functions massively and 
predominantly by repression, whereas the 
Ideological State Apparatuses function 
massively and predominantly by ideology. 
The example suggests that “the Army and the 
Police also function of ideology both to 
ensure their own cohesion and reproduction, 
and in the „values‟ they propound externally” 
(Althusser, 1971:145) 

This ideological function of RSA works 
when the academy of Police or Army recruits 
new members. To alter the civilians of non-
apparatuses to become a repressive 
apparatus they should not be treated by force 
or repression. Some ideological values should 
be introduced and internalized as the means 
of reproduction  of  the  corps.  In  addition,  
by  functioning  through  ideology  the 
Repressive State Apparatuses are able to get 
society‟s supports for their repressive action. 

Insofar as it is a repressive apparatus, 
the role of Repressive State Apparatus 
consists essentially in securing by force 
(physical or otherwise) the political 
conditions of the reproduction of relations of 
production which are in last resort relations 
of exploitation. Not only does the State 
Apparatus contribute generously to its own 
reproduction (the capitalist State contains 
political dynasties, military dynasties, etc.), 
but also, above all, the State apparatus scores 
by repression (from the most brutal physical 
force, via mere administrative commands and 
interdictions, to open and tacit censorship) 
the political conditions for the action of the 
Ideological State Apparatuses. 

Repressive State Apparatus also provides 
„shield‟ for the Ideological State Apparatus to 
secure the reproduction specifically of the 
relations of production. It is here that the role 
of the ruling ideology is heavily concentrated, 
the ideology of the ruling class, which holds 
State power. 

2. Ideological State Apparatus

According to Althusser, ideology has the 
material condition which is the 
materialization of ideas into a practice. 
Althusser suggests that ideology existing in a 
material ideological apparatus, prescribing 
material practices governed by a material 
ritual, which practices governed by a material 
ritual, which practices exist in the material 
actions of a subject acting in all consciousness 
according to his belief.  Its material condition 
is ensured by the  existence of  Ideological 
State Apparatuses (ISA). 

A relatively large number of ideological 
State apparatuses were listed by Althusser 
(1971:143). They are the educational 
apparatus, the religious apparatus, the family 
apparatus, the political apparatus, the trade-
union apparatus, the communication 
apparatus, and the „cultural‟ apparatus. He 
proposes that ISA should not be confused 
with the RSA by saying that “there is one 
Repressive State Apparatus, there is a 
plurality of Ideological State Apparatus” 
(1971:144). 

The unified Repressive State Apparatus 
belongs entirely to the public domain, which 
suggests that RSA is under the control of one 
unit, the State. On the other hand, Ideological 
State Apparatuses are part of the private 
domain, namely churches, political parties, 
trade union, families, some schools, most 
newspapers, and cultural ventures. 

To tackle the arguments which question 
why above listed agents are regarded as the 
agent of the State despite of their attachment 
to the private institution, Althusser 
(1971:144) argues that “what matters is how 
they function. Private institutions can 
perfectly well „function‟ as Ideological State 
Apparatuses”. When an agent in the private 
domain functions massively and 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

184 

predominantly by the ideology of the ruling 
class, it serves the function as the Ideological 
State Apparatus. 

 
The ISAs work as the agent to formulate 

and materialize the teaching of ideology in a 
realization of action. This realization in a 
small part of the apparatus is, for instance the 
school day, a funeral, a minor match at a 
sports club or a political party meeting. 
However, no Ideological State Apparatus is 
purely ideological, as Althusser proposes: 

 
Ideological State Apparatus functions 
massively and predominantly by ideology, 
but they also function secondarily by 
repression, even if ultimately, but only 
ultimately, this is very attenuated and 
concealed, even symbolic. Thus, there is no 
such thing as a purely ideological 
apparatus (1971: 145) 
 
Some Ideological State Apparatus might 

work as the agent of punishment, expulsion 
and selection. Schools and Churces are the 
example of ISA which function is to discipline 
their students and followers. 

 

Marxist Theory on Capitalism 
 
The concept of capitalism denotes a 

mode of production in which capital in its 
various forms is the principal means of 
production. Capital, in the forms of credit or 
money, is important to buy the labour power 
and materials of production such as raw 
materials and machinery. The prominent 
feature of capitalism as a mode of production 
is “the private ownership of capital in the 
hand of a class—the capitalist class as an 
exclusion of the mass of population” 
(Bottomore, 1991:71- 72). The investment on 
capital in the expectation of large profit 
differentiates the capitalist mode of 
production from the previous mode of 
production. 

 
According to Marx, the key to 

capitalism—or any other mode of production, 
for that matter—is the organization of 
production. Under capitalism, labour power 
becomes a commodity, bought and sold on 
the market just like any other commodities, 
and for many people the sale of that labour 

power is their only source of livelihood. In 
contrast to feudalism, capitalism is 
characterized not by the coercive power or 
landowners over peasants, but by the sale of 
labour power on the basis of a wage contract 
(Howell, 1995:4). 

 
In other words, capitalism as mode of 

production is a market where labor power—
the working class‟ only means of survival—is 
bought and sold. The control of the 
production (labour) process is on the hand of 
the capitalist or his managerial agent, which 
covers the power over hiring and firing 
workers. In addition, the implication also 
covers the choice of techniques, the output, 
the work environment and the arrangement 
for selling the output (Bottomore, 1991:72). 

 
Capitalism developed by destroying the 

feudal mode of production and replacing it 
with one based on absolute private property 
and the market, which made possible far 
higher levels of productivity (commodity 
production). In the feudal mode of 
production, the ownership of the property 
remains in the hand of the lord, while the 
serfs are forced to work in the land owned by 
the landlords. Meanwhile, in the capitalist 
mode of production, workers who had owned 
their looms or tools eventually had nothing to 
sell but their labour. The inherent 
contradiction is expressed in the conflict of 
interest between capitalist and worker. The 
central to the nature of the capitalist mode of 
production is the private accumulation of 
capital as the foundation of factory working. 
The capitalists want to pay the working class‟ 
labour power as low as possible to generate 
more profit and accumulate more wealth. In 
the other hand, the working class struggles to 
get paid higher than they should be. 

 
Capitalist mode of production began to 

emerge when individuals who had 
accumulated the first capital created 
workshop, that is enterprises where workers 
labored side by side for a wage and on their 
employer‟s account. These workers had 
formerly been independent masters of the 
product of their labor. Yet, because they are 
deprived of the mode of production, these 
workers control nothing but their labour 
power: 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

185 

The working class consists of those who 
own nothing but their own labour power. 
Because workers have no other access to 
the means of production and have to sell 
something in order to live they are forced 
to sell their labour power and cannot 
make use of its value-creating property 
themselves. So workers are exploited not 
by unequal exchange in the labour 
market, for they sell their labour power at 
its value, but through class position of 
having to enter the capitalist production 
process wherein exploitation actually 
occurs (Bottomore, 1991:529). 

The process of buying and selling labour 
power in the capitalist mode of production is 
exploiting in the sense that workers must 
bargain in the condition of fear to face 
starvation or losing a home whereas the 
capitalist bargains under no pressure to 
employ the workers. Furthermore, as the 
central exploitation, the owner of the means 
of production extracts the surplus value, 
which is the value created by the labour over 
and above the value of his labor power which 
is appropriated without payment by the 
capitalist. 

Under the capitalist mode of production, 
class was a uniquely prominent feature—
class itself is a product of the bourgeoisie. 
Marx in Bottomore argues that 

in so far as millions of families live under 
economic conditions of existence that 
separate their mode of life, their interests, 
and their culture from those of the other 
classes, and put them in hostile opposition 
to the latter, they form a class (1991). 

The invention of automatic machinery 
made it possible to replace the craft workers 
with the less skilled and cheaper labour. By 
hiring the less skilled and cheaper labour, the 
factory is able to minimize the wage cost 
apart from holding wage rates down (Fulcher, 
2004:6). Keeping the wage cost of workers 
down is the form of exploitation generates by 
the capitalists. Additionally, capitalist mode 
of production fosters exploitation by 
disciplining the workers. Moreover, 
capitalists get the profit by exploiting the 
surplus labor time of workers. What is called 

by Marxists theorist as surplus value that is 
well explained by Bottomore: 

Surplus value is the difference between the 
two, the value produced by the worker 
which is appropriated by the capitalist 
without equivalent given in exchange 
(1991:529) 
. 

Review of the Tokugawa – Meiji 
Periods 

A well-known notion pronounces that 
“where feudalism ends, the capitalist regime 
commences‟. This historical background 
shows the transformation from feudalism to 
capitalism from the Tokugawa period (1603-
1867) until the Meiji period (1868-1912) in 
Japan. 

The essential character of the new Meiji 
state was not substantially different from that 
of the Tokugawa regime and farmers were 
exploited as severely as they had been 
hitherto. From this point of view, the Meiji 
state can be considered as a semi feudal state 
which is a natural continuation of the 
Tokugawa regime. However, the type of 
economy established after the Meiji 
Revolution was very far from that type of 
capitalism in which England started to 
advance. 

The central and various local 
governments operated productive and 
commercial business either directly (i.e. by 
using their own samurai for management or 
work force) or indirectly (i.e. by leaving the 
business in the hands of their chartered 
merchants) (Morishima, 1986:18). 

Two types of merchants emerged in 
Japan during Tokugawa regime. The first is in 
castle towns and the latter in villages. 
Receiving a number of privileges from the 
clan government, the former were allowed to 
form guilds (kabu-nakama) which gave them 
a monopoly of the right to trade in town, 
whereas in many respects, the town 
merchants dominated the village merchants. 
They were capitalists who had a more 
advantageous position that the merchants in 
the castle towns, because they were able to 



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186 

control the industries to earn for themselves 
the profits from production. 

 
New Western style workshops were 

established toward the end of the Tokugawa 
era. As the remnant of the Tokugawa era, the 
system of clan still be retained. Clans were 
responsible for districts and areas. For 
instance, Saga clan, which was asked by the 
Tokugawa to be responsible for Nagasaki 
were advantageous compared with other 
clans of easier access to Western technology. 
The Satsuma clan started a wool-spinning 
workshop in 1819 developed their business 
to produce cannons, guns, medicines and 
glass in 1846. 

 
After the revolution known as Meiji 

Revolution, the central government abolished 
the clans and the caste system within a few 
years. The government took over many of the 
factories and other organizations such as 
school which had been owned by clans. In the 
early days of the Meiji era, the state owned 
factories played an important role. The 
modern factory equipped with completely 
Western style machines of the Satsuma clan, 
which was taken over by the new 
government played an important role in 
promoting the new Western method of 
production (Morishima, 1986:21). 

 
In the early 20th century, Japan was 

acquainted with the sub-division of 
manufacturing industry, which is categorized 
into five groups: (1) food and drink, (2) 
paper, ceramics and chemicals, (3) machinery 
and tools, (4) dyeing and weaving, and (5) 
miscellaneous. Each of them can be 
subdivided into the small, medium-sized and 
large factory sectors, according to the 
number of workers of the factory. The small 
factory employed between 5 and 49 labour, 
while the medium- sized employed between 
50 and 499 labour. The large factory 
employed more than 500 labour (Morishima, 
1986:24). 

 
In Japan, the transformation to 

capitalism was very much evolutionary, not 
revolutionary, the political upheaval of the 
Restoration period notwithstanding. 
Capitalist production had already begun to 
emerge in the early nineteenth century Japan, 

and the Tokugawa state had already begun to 
formulate a response—albeit an inadequate 
one—before it fell in 1868. The succeeding 
Meiji regime completed its accomodation to 
capitalism over the remainder of the 
nineteenth century, with the result that 
scattered instances of capitalist productive 
relations gave way to a capitalist mode of 
production (Howell, 1995:5).  

 

Parallelism between Kappanese and 
Japanese Society 

 

1. Allegory of Setting 
 
Whenever a guest pays a visit for the 

main character, Inmate No.23, in the mental 
hospital, he will tell his story of travelling to 
Kappaland. It is a place where he lived in 
several months with the mythological 
creature, Kappa. Kappaland is the particular 
physical location in which the story takes 
place. It thus serves the function as the 
setting of the story. 

  
Inmate No. 23 fell into the Kappaland 

because of his curiosity of the mythological 
creature. One fine summer, he encountered a 
Kappa when he was hiking to the Mount 
Hodaka. To catch the Kappa he encountered 
in Azuza Valley, he ran into the shadow of the 
Kappa and immediately snatched it. 
Eventually, it led him slipping into a hole to 
Kappaland. 

 
Out of the main character’s surprise, the 

Kappas live in a very different kind of life 
which is commonly portrayed in several 
mythological books. Some books and folklore 
records in the world of the narrator describe 
Kappa as a mythological creature who live in 
the river or the lake. However, Inmate No. 23 
found that they are not living that way. 

 
One might think that Kappa lives in a 

wild area, just as how the animals live. 
Supposing that they are mythological 
creature, the storytellers in the book of 
mythology would not assume that they have a 
civilized structure of society. However, what 
Kappaland is drawn by Inmate No. 23 is 
different from theirs. 

 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

187 

In Kappaland, Kappas live as a well 
organized society with a developed culture 
and way of live. Their civilized society is 
progressing under the rule of government. 
Kappas own a developed city, housing, even 
use cars as the mode of transportation. In 
addition, they live under the State with the 
parliamentary system, which employs the 
police and the army as the state apparatuses. 

Akutagawa, through Inmate No. 23 
describes the setting of Kappaland as follows: 
“then we went for several hundred yards 
along a street which, for all I could see, looked 
just like Ginza, the main street in Tokyo” 
(Akutagawa, 2009:52).  

After some time loosing his 
consciousness, Inmate No. 23 was awakened 
in the Kappaland. When Inmate No.23 gained 
his consciousness, he was aware that he was 
carried through the throng of Kappas passing 
a street which resembles Ginza. 

It is not too difficult to notice that the 
setting of Kappaland resembles Japan. Inmate 
No.23 himself as a human who all of the time 
lives in Japan notices the similarity between 
Kappaland and Japan. He says that “it had a 
similar line of beech trees on each side and a 
steady stream of cars filled the road between 
them. In  the  shade  cast  by  these  trees,  
there  were  rows  of  shops;  these  dealt  in 
everything you could think of and each 
sported its sunshade” (Akutagawa, 2009:52). 

The representation of Japan also appears 
in the concert hall of Kappaland. Inmate No. 
23 once came to a concert with Tok, the 
Kappa poet. He thinks that “of course, there 
was hardly any difference between the layout 
of Kappa concert halls and ours in Japan. 
Theirs, too, had rows of gradually banked 
seats, and all the other things I know so well” 
(Akutagawa, 2009:75). 

 These similarities might be one of the 
reasons why Inmate No. 23 was able to adapt 
and live in Kappaland for several months. In 
other words, Kappaland can be regarded as a 
miniature of cultured life of Japan. Ranging 
from the streets that resembles Ginza, Tokyo; 
the house arrangement, the concert hall, and 
the cultural practice of the inhabitants who 

love to enjoy and express themselves through 
art performance. All of this parallelism 
indicates that the story of Kappa is a 
correspondence of the Japanese people. 
There is something that Akutagawa wants to 
say through such setting. If not, he would 
rather create a setting such as the life of 
Kappas on the river or lakes, similar to what 
the author of mythological books describes 
about Kappa’s life and civilization. 

Allegory of Characters: Gael as the 
Representation of Japanese Capitalist 

Gael is the director of a glass corporation 
in Kappaland, which is along the story is 
called capitalist Kappa. Among the other 
Kappa represented in this story, he is a 
prominent character who is very often 
engaged in the discussion with Inmate No. 23 
and several Kappas, including Chak, the 
doctor Kappa, and Pep, the judge. Even if Gael 
is in the form of Kappa—not a human—he is 
considered as a character because he 
represents particular moral, intellectual, and 
emotional qualities of what a person says and 
does. 

Gael frequently invites his fellow friends 
to eat in his luxurious house where the whole 
room, including the tables and chairs, is in 
Secessionist style, with a thin gold rim on 
white ground. Inmate No. 23 suggests that 
“from time to time, I used to go out to Gael’s 
house for dinner, in the company of either 
Judge Pep or DrChak” (Akutagawa, 2009: 81). 

Inviting the reader to get a closer look at 
the physical features of Gael, Inmate No. 23 
describes Gael. To some extend, Inmate No.23 
considers Gael’s appearance disgusting. 
Inmate No. 23 utters that no one in 
Kappaland is as disgusting as Gael. He reveals 
that “not even in this land of fat paunches was 
there one that sagged and bellied out quite as 
disgustingly as Gael’s” (Akutagawa, 2009: 
81). One should not read this description 
literally, for Kappa and human’s physical 
appearance are essentially different. 
Accordingly, this judgement will make a 
sense when it is read metaphorically. Gael’s 
‘sagged and bellied out fat paunches’ is used 
by the author to criticize the nature of a 
capitalist, who, at some point is disgusting as 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

188 

he accumulates the resources and capital to 
enrich self. The description associated 
human’s greed. 

 
From time to time, by the accompany of 

Gael Inmate No. 23, went to Gael’s club—
where Kappas spend their time listening to 
the music and dance with other visitors—and 
spent an extremely delightful evening with 
him there. This is another indication that Gael 
lives in an extravagant life. Not all Kappas are 
lucky or rich enough to own a club. Compared 
to the fisher Kappa, Bag, Gael lives a very 
luxurious life. Bag, as described by Inmate No. 
23 is living in a cottage. Even if the narrator 
does not give any further explanation about 
the life of Bag, the reader may draw a 
conclusion that the life of Gael and the fisher 
Kappa are in any way different. 

 
As the director of a huge glass 

corporation he owns the means of 
production, such as the land, the factory, and 
the machines, which serve as the means to 
ensure the production. The ownership of the 
means of production distinguishes him from 
other Kappas who do not possess them. The 
Marxist view suggests that it is the ownership 
of the means of production that determine 
ones’ position in the relation of production. 

 
Also, as a capitalist, Gael is not compelled 

to sell his labour-power in order to survive. 
Instead, he buys the labour-power to work 
for him in order to generate profit. In short, 
his amount of daily life does not belong to 
someone who buys his labour-power. In one 
way or another, Gael is connected with the 
other capitalists, as it is suggested by Inmate 
No. 23. He asserts that “Gael would often give 
me introductions for visits to a great variety 
of factories or plants which were connected 
in some way either with him or with one of 
his many friends” (Akutagawa, 2009: 81). 

 
Commodities in which Gael’s factory 

produces are significant to the development 
of allegory. Glass and coal are the products 
made by Japanese workers during the Meiji 
Restoration (1868-1912). Thus, Gael’s 
identity as the owner of glass corporation and 
the supplier of coal during the war is parallel 
with the condition of Japan at the beginning 
of 20th century. 

Allegory of Events 
 

1. The Use of Highly Mechanized Tools in 
Factory 
 
In Kappaland, the highly mechanized 

tools are used in the factory. The director of a 
glass corporation, Gael, once introduces 
Inmates No.23 to one of the factories in 
Kappaland, the book manufacturing, which 
Inmate No.23 found fascinating. Inmate No.23 
was shown around the factory by a young 
Kappa engineer. They stopped to look at an 
enormous contraption driven by hidro- 
electric power then Inmate No. 23 said to 
himself, “once more, I found myself 
astonished by the advance state of 
mechanization in the industries of 
Kappaland” (Akutagawa, 2009:82). 

 
The volume of production in the book 

manufacturing factory reached the region of 
seven million. This was due to the 
characteristics of the machines they used. 
“The ingredients are fed into the machine 
and, in barely five seconds, they are ejected as 
octavos, duodecimos, royal octavos and so 
on” (Akutagawa, 2009:82). Surely, all of the 
fascinating gesture made by the machine and 
the rate of production in only several seconds 
cannot be done by human or Kappas in 
general. 

 
Meiji Restoration has transformed 

Japan’s economy. Industrial production rose 
five times and exports soared, and Japan had 
become a creditor nation by 1920: 

 
Industrial production was almost doubled 
during the period between 1914 and 
1919. The average profit rate for industry, 
which in the first half of 1914 was 40.8 per 
cent, rose during the three-year period 
1917-1919 to 55,2 per cent. During this 
time, in areas like shipping, ship-building, 
and mining, the profit rate even rose as 
high as 160 to 200 per cent (Kato, 1998: 
32) 
 
Extending their interests in all kinds of 

industrial activity, the zaibatsu (cohesive 
family-controlled groups of monopolistic 
companies in key economic areas), like Mitsui 
and Mitsubishi, grew in power. 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

189 

The portrayal of mechanization in 
Kappaland industries is in line with the Japan 
government agenda to promote 
industrialization and modernization. “The 
process of Japan’s emergence as a modern 
state necessarily involved an institutional 
transition from feudalism to capitalism” 
Shigeto (2000: 283). Japan adapted imported 
capital-intensive technology to more 
effectively utilize labor. Before Japan 
imported a single cotton-spinning machine or 
built a single mile of railroad, the state 
completed a reverbatory furnace in 1852, 
imported a lathe- machine in 1856, and 
constructed a shipyard for steam-operated 
warships in 1863 (Shigeto, 2000: 284). 

The use of highly mechanized tools is the 
sign of modernity and efficiency in making 
goods. More and more tools are produced to 
support that mode of production.  As in  the  
depiction of industrial production, 
Akutagawa’s Kappa suggests that “...in an 
average month Kappaland sees the invention 
of as many as seven or eight hundred new 
devices of this kind” (Akutagawa, 2009:83). 
Akutagawa portrayed the condition when 
human realizes that to maximize the quantity 
of production as well as their profit, they 
should rely on mechanization and thus 
produce more powerful and efficient 
production devices. 

Japan was regarded by Ike (1949) as “the 
most successful (country in Asia) in adopting 
modern methods of industrial production”. 
The individuals who had acquired their 
wealth through commercial operations and 
the practice of lending money at the very high 
rates of interest became industrial capitalist. 
This is one of the origin of Japanese 
industrialization. In the early 20th century, 
Japan was acquainted with the sub-division of 
manufacturing industry, which is categorized 
into five groups: (1) food and drink, (2) 
paper, ceramics and chemicals, (3) machinery 
and tools, (4) dyeing and weaving, and (5) 
miscellaneous (Morishima, 1986: 24). 

2. War with Neighboring Country

Kappaland was at some time after a war 
when inmate No.23 stayed there. The war 
waged between Kappa and Otters. Otters are 

neighbor to kappa since they are living near 
Kappaland. Inmate No. 23 knows the fact 
through Gael, the capitalist. Gael explains that 
Kappa was engaged in a war with Otter, the 
constant potential enemy. “Yes, I’m afraid 
that’s just about it.... But something like that 
war incident of seven years ago, for 
instance...” (Akutagawa, 2009:89). The 
conversation below between Inmate No.23 
and Gael, the capitalist, shows that 
Kappanese happened to experience a war and 
they managed to win the war: 

“Who won the war, then” 
“We did, of course! 369,500 Kappas fell 
nobly in the campaign. But compared with 
the losses they enemy suffered this was 
pretty negligible. Practically every piece of 
fur in this country is Otter” (Akutagawa, 
2009:91) 

This similar condition happened in Japan 
during the Taisho period, that they were 
engaged in war with several countries. 

Kappa war with Otters is parallel with 
the fact that Japan had been in the Sino-Japan 
War in in 1894-1895 and the Russo-Japan 
War in 1904-1905. Following the lack 
possesion and inadequate natural resources, 
Japan set a war with her neighboring country, 
China. The raw materials were needed to 
supply growing manufacturing industries. 
This fact motivated them to invade China, 
causing huge loss in the other side. Growing 
political rivalry to dominate Korea and 
Manchuria trigger Japan and Russia to set the 
war. 

Through the war with China in 1894-
1895 and with Russia in 1904-1905, Japan 
experienced a rapid expansion of capitalist 
industry and the growth of an impoverished 
proletariat, whose wages were held back by 
the still proportionately massive peasantry 
and rural unemployed (Bottomore, 1991: 
365). 

3. Censorship and Ban on Cultural
Products

The vivid image of the State showed up 
in the form of policemen. During a 
performance of Krabach, the Kappa 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

190 

composer, a group of kappa policemen halt 
the music to be played. It was started with a 
policeman who sit behind Inmate No. 23 who 
“lolled back sumptuously in his seat...even 
more loudly than on the first occasion” 
(Akutagawa, 2009: 77) 

‘Stop the performance!’ And then... 
An then, all hell broke loose. Shouts and 
screams echoed and re-echoed across the 
body of the hall. 
‘Down with police tyranny!’ ‘Play on 
Krabach! Play on!’ ‘You bloody fool!’ 
‘You filthy bastard!’ 
‘Get out! Get out of here!’ 
‘Dont’t let yourself be browbeaten, 
Krabach. Play on!’ (Akutagawa, 2009: 77) 

In the middle of the performance the 
Kappa policeman shouted to Krabach the 
composer to stop the performance in an 
intimidating voice. However, the composer 
was not at any point willing to stop his 
performance. Krabach did not want to stop. 
Instead, he kept playing in the midst of chaos. 

The Kappa police as an apparatus of the 
State, is employed to set the standard in the 
music. The performance of music with the 
unclear message will be prohibited  and  
banned.  To  the  extend  whenever  the  live 
performance  of  the unaccepted music is 
held, the police should come and prohibit the 
performance to be continued. 

When Inmate No. 23 asked about what is 
going on, Mag answers him with: “this you 
mean? Oh, it’s nothing to fuss about: it’s 
always happening here! The essence of 
painting and writing....” (Akutagawa, 2009: 
78). Mag explains to Inmate No. 23 that such 
action is happening all the time. The State is 
not only prohibit the music but also the 
painting and writing. Those cultural products 
must have clear meaning, so that the readers, 
or listeners and everyone know the writer or 
composer’s intention and expression behind 
the products they make. Mag explains that  

The essence of painting and writing is that 
it should be absolutely obvious to anyone 
and everyone what it is that the artist and 
the writer aim to give expression to. As a 
result, this country we have never 

practiced anything on the lines of a 
prohibition on sale or exhibition 
Akutagawa (2009: 78) 

The cencorship on cultural products also 
happened in Japan. Since the raise of 
naturalism between 1906-1902, supression 
became more intense during the years of 
growing militarism. Not to mention during 
the war years, Japan’s twentieth-century 
literature, the State and the conservatives 
saw the literature with individualism, 
naturalism, modernism, socialism and 
libertarianism theme as a fall on the moral 
and behaviour. Thus, it should be prohibited. 

Capitalism as an Ideology Criticized 
through Allegory 

1. How Capitalism Works in Kappaland

According to Althusser, ideology is 
embodied in material practices. He suggests 
that “an ideology always exists in an 
apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This 
existence is material” (1971: 166). He admits 
that ideology does not correspond to reality. 
Instead, it creates an illusion. In other words, 
ideology make allusion to reality. To unfold 
the reality of the world behind the imaginary 
representation of that world, ideoloy should 
be interpreted. 

In the story narrated by Inmate No. 23, 
the author shows how the capitalist mode of 
production is promoted in Kappaland. The 
capitalist mode of production is the system of 
production within a capitalist society, where 
the ownership of the means of production, 
such as the raw materials, the factory, the 
machines and tools are in the hand of the 
private entity. The means of production are 
usually held by the owner of capital, while the 
ones who do not own capital works as wage-
laborers. Here are some practices of 
capitalism in Kappaland as the material 
existence of capitalist ideology. 

First, the private ownership of mode of 
production. Most of the factories in 
Kappaland are owned by private entities. One 
of the examples is the glass corporation that 
is owned by Gael. As a managing director of 
the huge glass corporation he has no much 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

191 

work to do. He does not have the 
responsibility to engage in the simple manual 
labour, but specialized into a privilege work. 
By employing the working class, he can live a 
prosperous life: ...when he lounged in his easy 
chair at home, surrounded by his wife (she 
was, by the way, the image of a litchi) and by 
his cucumber-shaped children, Gael was the 
picture of bliss (Akutagawa, 2009: 81).  

Second, the mass production and the 
growing number of machines. During his visit 
to Kappaland, Inmate No. 23 finds that the 
mode of production in one of the factories is 
supported by the use of machines. In his visit 
to a book factory, he watched all the 
“different sized books cascading from the 
machine like a torrent...” (Akutagawa, 2009: 
82). The production of the books is no longer 
supported by the kappa workers. The same 
sort things occur also in the production of 
both art and music. This is the indication that 
the capitalism has grown into a more 
sophisticated form. 

Third, the government law to slaughter 
the unemployed Kappa. The capitalist 
ideology is not only working in the mode of 
production, but also influence the law that 
the State enact. In the midst of the massive 
unemployment, the State of Kappaland is not 
enacting a law to prevent the working class to 
be laid off. The State does not provide a safety 
net for the unemployed kappas so that they 
will not suffer much from the condition. 
Instead, the State allows the unemployed 
kappas to be slaughtered. It is revealed when 
Pep, the judge kappa explain to Inmate No. 
23. Pep says “you see, we have a statute
covering the butchery of the worker” 
(Akutagawa, 2009: 84). 

From the three examples above, it can be 
concluded that the factories in Kappaland 
apply the capitalist mode of production. Not 
only it is seen from the mode of production, 
but also the law enacted by the State covering 
the subordination of the working class. The 
system of capitalism has been working in 
Kappaland through the relation of 
production, i.e. the dominant class subjects 
the working class. Moreover, it is supported 
by the government through its law. Thus, it 
shows that the ideology of capitalism, as the 

system of ideas which dominate the mind of a 
man or social group, is working in the 
Kappaland. 

2. The Role of Government on the
Capitalist Mode of Production

As an allegorical story, the author of 
Kappa employs some features to criticize the 
Japanese people’s life by comparing to the 
behaviour of Kappa in the Kappaland with the 
people in Japan in the early 20th  century. In 
this section, the writer of this thesis 
highlights the allegorical setting, which is role 
of government in Kappaland in promoting the 
capitalistic ideas. The writer believes that this 
depcition is intentionally made by the author 
as one of the criticism toward human’s 
quality. 

Kappaland is a capitalistic state, in which 
the government supports the capitalist 
socioeconomic system to grow in their 
country. Before explaining the role of the 
government in promoting the capitalistic 
ideas to the kappa civilians, one has to aware 
that kappaland is the country ruled by 
government. Kappa has a developed society 
in which they choose several people to be the 
representative in the top of governance. 

In the story, the State, as the agent which 
holds the power in Kappaland is proven to 
favor the dominant class than the working 
class. The State has a role in letting the 
capitalist ideology grow. As the proof, in this 
novel the State is clearly showing its stance 
on the side of owner of the means of 
production in the case of retaining condition 
of the relation of production in Kappaland. 
The State does not provide any safety net for 
the proletariat—the wage earner—if in any 
case they are fired by the owner of the means 
of production. In short, the State supports the 
relation of production in the Kappaland, 
where the dominant class exploits the 
working class. These two entities are paying 
taxes to the government, but preference 
action is given by the State to the dominant 
class in the society. In the case of industrial 
unemployment, the State takes the stance on 
the capitalists. 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

192 

To be clear, the State passes a regulation 
that legalize the act of slaughtering  the  
unemployed  Kappas.  The  term  
‘slaughtering’  in  Kappaland contains a literal 
meaning. In one of the discussion between 
Inmate No. 23 and the kappas, Pep the judge, 
says “what Gael means was that we slaughter 
any worker who loses his job...” (Akutagawa, 
2009: 88). In this story, ‘slaughtering’ Kappa 
is not a figurative expression . The expression 
suggests an action of killing a large number of 
Kappas in one time for their meat. 

 
This action could happen because of the 

legalization by the State. Slaughtering Kappas 
who loses their jobs is an act of double 
repression. First, the unemployed Kappas has 
loses their sustainable income. They are no 
longer able to afford a living, including the 
shelter, the clothes, and most importantly the 
food. 

 
The State action to slaughter the working 

class Kappa who are laid off by the companies 
is an easy way out. By slaughtering the 
working class Kappa, the government will not 
be responsible to take care of their lives when 
they are no longer have sustainable income. 
Kappas who are fired by the owner of capital 
will be soon or later suffers from starvation 
for they cannot afford food. It is suggested 
that “by such action, the State takes over and 
saves a man all the bother of suicide or death 
by starvation” (Akutagawa, 2009: 84). 

 
The law enacted by the State is a clear 

statement. It shows that the State of 
Kappaland is the agent of repression who 
works for the interest of the dominant class. 
Althusser argues that the State is a repressive 
apparatus which caters the interest of the 
ruling class, the bourgeoisie. The State is 
controlled by the economically dominant 
class: 

 
The State is a ‘machine’ of repression, 
which enables the ruling classes (in the 
nineteenth century the bourgeois class 
and the ‘class’ of big landowners)  to  
ensure  their  domination  over  the  
working  class,  thus enabling the former 
to subject the latter to the process of 
surplus-value extortion (i.e. to capitalist 
exploitation) (Althusser, 1971:137) 

The repression comes in many ways, 
including the visible repressive way and the 
imperceptible way. The means to ensure the 
dominance of the ruling class is helped by the 
Repressive State Apparatus and the 
Ideological State Apparatus. The Repressive 
State Apparatus, which functions by violence, 
contains the Government, the Administration, 
the Army, the Police, the Courts, the Prisons. 
The act of repression by the Repressive State 
Apparatuses might take physical or non-
physical forms. The Ideological State 
Apparatus, is described by Althusser as the 
system of school, politics, family and 
communication. 

 
The way Kapanese government passes 

the law on slaughtering unemployed Kappa 
as a just action may spread the message to 
the rest of citizens that it is just and normal to 
treat the working class as a subordinate 
civilians. If the workers are no longer 
productive, they might cause more problems, 
including the raise on the poverty rate, which 
force the government to help them by raising 
the tax or cutting the government expense for 
other public necessity. That is why the 
government makes a law to banish the 
unemployed Kappa from the Kappaland as 
soon as possible by slaughtering them. In 
addition, they are able to get the meat of the 
workers, so the price of the meat decrease. 

  
This working class, in this case, is the 

victim of the capitalistic way of production. 
They had sold their labor power, in order to 
earn money for a living, but they are not 
treated like humans. Workers tend to be 
treated as one of the factors of production; 
not any higher than machines. When they are 
no longer productive or cannot comply with 
the target, they are dumped like trash. 

 
The phenomenon of replacing human 

with machine in a mode of production can be 
read as a deterioration of humanity. 
Conditioning human as one of the commodity 
happens only in a capitalistic mode of 
production. Human is treated like a 
commodity, besides raw material, fixed 
installations (building), and any instruments 
of production for instance machines to 
produce goods and services in the capitalistic 
mode of production. 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

193 

When the target of production is raised 
by the capitalists—which is actually 
unnecessary—in order to gain more profit, 
the human power will be automatically taken 
over by the machine. The machine is known 
as a tool with nearly zero mistakes. It has a 
prominent ability to produce more goods and 
services in no time compared to human. The 
owner of the means of production will tend to 
argue that that is the time to lay off workers 
and run the machines instead. The cost of 
ensuring human to produce the same amount 
of energy and labor power to present in the 
factory in the next days will be much higher 
than the costs to buy and maintain the 
machines; as in fact machines could do better 
than human in terms of quantity. 

As Althusser (1971) posits in order to 
reproduce the labor of power, the firm should 
give the labor material means to reproduce 
itself, which is the wage capital. The wage 
capital is in fact not the result of the worker’s 
work in the factory, but the material means to 
reproduce the “wherewithal to pay for 
housing, clothing and in short to enable the 
wage earner to present himself again at the 
factory gate the next day”. 

The act of slaughtering Kappas cannot be 
related with the literal meaning in the 
Japanese relation of production. When 
reading this action we should not take it into 
account. According to Tambling “reading 
involves choices, deciding, perhaps 
unconsciously, what should be taken literally, 
at face value, and what should be taken 
allegorically” (Tambling, 2010: 15). One of 
the possible meanings of this surface story 
suggests is that capitalistic mode of 
production in Japan results in industrial 
unemployment. Akutagawa employs the 
exaggerative way, which is to make 
something worse than it really is, to highlight 
the exploitative system of capitalist 
production. 

Capitalism, by its nature, is exploitative. 
The owner of the means of production 
exploits the working class to accumulate 
wealth. This system enables the 
concentration of capital and the means of 
production (factories, business, machinery) 
at the hand of the relatively small amount of 

people, the dominant class. Associated with 
unfair distribution of wealth and power, 
capitalism also has a tendency toward 
economic and cultural exploitation. 

One of the economic exploitation that 
capitalism generates is its treatment of 
labour, which makes labour analogous to all 
other commodities, namely factories, land, 
raw materials and machines. Labour power is 
bought at the minimum price so that the 
capitalists, the owner of the means of 
production, able to gain more wealth from 
the price gap. While the capitalists control all 
the means of production, the only thing 
workers can control is their labor power. 
They are, either with consent or not, 
exploited by this vicious cycle of selling their 
labor power at a minimum price and as the 
return get the wage in order to survive. 
Workers must allow their labor power to be 
exploited or face starvation. The exploitation 
of working class is what Akutagawa criticizes 
in his allegory of government in Kappaland. 

3. The Role of Capitalists, Media and
Ruling Party

In this section the writer highlights the 
relation between capitalist, media and ruling 
party in the capitalistic State. Capitalism as an 
ideology cannot stand alone to retain its 
position in the mind of every civilians of a 
State. The ideology needs Apparatuses of the 
States to ensure the dominance of the ruling 
class and the subordination of the working 
class. In addition, the ideology is used to 
ensure the relation of production in the 
capitalistic mode of production, which 
requires the workers to be willing to stay 
subjected. 

In Kappa, Akutagawa throws a vivid 
image that in order to prolong its dominance 
in a State, the capitalists must control some of 
the key elements in the State, namely media 
and ruling party. The relation between 
capitalists, media, and ruling party is 
powerful to control the mind of citizens. Each 
of the elements is deemed essential to 
preserve submissiveness of the working class 
and control the rest of the State. 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

194 

The writer of this thesis found some 
essential roles of media and political party in 
Kappaland as it is depicted by Akutagawa in 
Kappa. The quotation below might well 
represent how the power of media is held by 
the capitalists, the upper class with the 
tendency to control the head of the lower 
class “But don’t run away with the idea,” went 
on Gael, “that this Qui Qui is his own boss. Not 
a bit of it—there’s yet one more person above 
and beyond him, none other than Gael you 
see in front of you” (Akuagawa, 2009: 88) 

 
In the quotation above Gael, the director 

of glass corporation, mentions that he is a 
person above and beyond Qui Qui, the owner 
of PouFou paper, one of the prominent paper 
in Kappaland. 

  
Gael knows that the media essentially 

function as the means to spread information, 
as the ground of society for making decisions, 
and may lead the public opinion. Through its 
framing and editorial policy media could 
inject certain ideology and values intended by 
the ruling ideology. 

 
The capitalists, are by their very nature, 

always seek for profit and benefit to reach a 
certain target and to manipulate the 
government regulation to support their 
interest. The dominant class will use their 
power of controlling media because they are 
not a social institution which do not seek for 
their own benefit. Moreover, the media has 
the power to control the people’s mind 
through its selective data and news produced 
in daily basis. 

 
Gael’s control over the PouFou paper is 

quite surprising for Inmate No. 23 when in 
fact he knows that this newspaper is the ally 
of the worker. He feels terrible to imagine 
that the leader of media, which associates 
with the working class turns out to be under 
the capitalist’s control. He speaks through his 
inner voice that “as I watch Gael, I felt not so 
much hatred of the man himself, as a deep 
sympathy for the wretched PouFou 
reporters,” (Akutagawa, 2009: 88). 

 
Explicitly Gael reveals that without his 

help, Qui Qui, the owner of the media as well 
as its reporters will not survive: 

“The PouFou reporters, naturally, are all 
for the working man, as you’d expect. But, 
well, you’ll agree that they are influenced 
and controlled by their boss, Qui Qui—and 
Qui Qui, off course, couldn’t survive 
without support from me.” (Akutagawa: 
2009: 88) 
 
The quotation above shows that there is 

a mutual relation between Gael and the 
owner of the media, Qui Qui. Most of the time, 
the media face the hardship to retain its 
position as a company. To maintain its 
existence, the media can not only rely on the 
newspaper selling profit, but also from the 
money generates from the advertisement 
space and other means of partnership. 
Dualism as a company and as the 
communication means makes it hard for the 
media to stay idealist in terms of serving the 
news for the humanity and the society’s 
greater good. 

 
Gael, as the owner of capital, benefits 

from this condition. In return, he hopes that 
his help to the media will bring more benefit 
for him. Because capitalists believe that there 
is no such thing as free lunch. What he gives 
is not a donation to the media. The benefits 
that might be gained are first the promotion 
of the product that his company sells. Every 
company has to be known by the society thus 
they need the media to advertise its products 
and services. Second, from this relation the 
media will ensure that they will not scrutinize 
any bad practices of the company. It means 
they will project the good side of the 
company. Third, media can be the agent of 
conditioning the workers for not making any 
political unrest by normalizing the 
exploitation they undergo. It is, not to 
mention, that the media has also planted in 
the people’s mind the idea that the 
capitalistic way of production is justifiable 
and necessary to be followed. 

 
In fact, this media can be regarded as 

what Althusser suggests, the Ideological State 
Apparatus, which is the apparatus which is 
working massively and predominantly by 
ideology. This ISA operates in a subtle way 
and avoids repression to internalize values 
and ideologies to the society. The way it goes 
through somebody’s mind is not very 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

195 

noticeable so that they cannot see and reject 
it. 

As an institution, the media owned by 
Qui Qui is not a government’s media. Yet, 
from Althusser’s perspective, this private 
media is still regarded as an Ideological State 
Apparatus for it serves the same goal as the 
government’s goal, which is to ensure that the 
domination of the ruling ideas will last long 
and contribute generously to the 
reproduction of relations of production which 
is the capitalists relations of exploitation. The 
ISA teaches the modesty, resignation, 
submissiveness to the domination of the 
owner of capital. Althusser, on this matter, 
suggests that “it is unimportant whether the 
institutions in which they are realized are 
‘public’ or ‘private’. What matters is how they 
function” (1971:144). 

The other things criticized by Akutagawa 
in Kappa is Gael’s influence to the political 
party by controlling the head of the political 
party. Quorax Party, the ruling party in 
Kappaland at that time, is controlled by the 
PouFou paper. This PouFou paper is 
controlled by Gael. In short, the party, 
including its Quorax Cabinet is also controlled 
indirectly by this capitalist kappa. 

Inmate No. 23 gets the sense that the 
ruling party, the Quorax Party is not serving 
the interest of all kappanese, but the 
dominant class. As a non-Kappa resident, he 
is told a secret by Gael that Loppe, the head of 
the party, is controlled by the owner of the 
PouFou paper. This quotation below shows 
how this relation works.  

“It’s Loppe I want to talk about, not his 
speeches or his lies. Now, Loppe—he’s in 
control of the Quorax Party. But there’s 
someone behind Loppe, and in control of 
him—and that’s Qui Qui, the president of 
the PouFou newspaper” (Akutagawa, 
2009: 87) 

Gael’s control over PouFou paper and 
Quorax Party is a significant quality 
Akutagawa attaches to the allegorical 
characters. Since, Gael represents the 
Japanese capitalist, Akutagawa wants to say 
through his story that this is how the ideology 

of capitalism works in Japan. The capitalist 
can retain its position as the dominant class 
by overpowering the elements of the State. 

By strengthening their influence to the 
political sphere, those capitalists secure their 
interest as well as discipline the working 
class by the implementation of social order 
through education. Keeping the relation of 
production in the capitalist mode of 
production, in which the working class is 
subjected by the owner of the means of 
production, is the goal of those capitalists. 

How the Allegory can be Regarded as a 
Criticism 

The first problem formulation answered 
the parallelism between Kappalandsociety 
with the Japanese. In this sub-chapter, the 
writer of the thesis attempts to uncover the 
function of allegory as a means to criticize 
and how each element of allegory contributes 
to the critics uttered by Akutagawa to the 
ruling ideology in Japan. To answer the 
question of how allegory is employed in 
criticizing the ruling ideology in Kappaland as 
well as in Japan, there are some allegorical 
devices that should be uncovered, namely the 
allegorical setting, the characters, significant 
events and some exaggeration used by the 
author. 

As Leyburn (1948) suggests that allegory 
can function as “a means of making satire 
direct and immediate”. In Kappa, Akutagawa 
employs the mythological creature to present 
human weakness, such as human’s greed, 
ignorance, even the inhumane and immoral 
behavior. The form of Kappa as an allegory of 
human is a kind of direct criticism, which is 
used to show the weakness and disgusting 
side of human. 

Akutagawa actually presents a true face 
of human with a deformed mirror by using 
Kappa as the character. In his story Kappa 
might be a reflection of human in many ways, 
including the evil side in human’s personality 
and traits. The mass slaughter of the 
unemployed Kappas and cannibalism are the 
representation of Japanese society, who in 
daily basis, promotes and involves in the 
capitalistic mode of production either as the 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

196 

part of the dominant class or the working 
class. 

 
The capitalist mode of production in 

Japan is suggested by Fujita in Ike (1949) that 
“as industrialization proceeded, the 
communal life in Japan tended to 
disintegrate, and the role of capital in both 
agriculture and industry became more 
important. Moreover, ‘feudal labor’ was 
converted into ‘de facto wage labor’”. The 
livelihood of working class Japan in the 
industrialization era depends on the wage as 
the labor. Under the capitalist mode of 
production the status of most labor in Japan 
from ‘feudal labor’ was converted into ‘wage 
labor’. However, the coercive power of the 
feudals in the feudal mode of production is 
essentially similar with the coercion in the 
capitalist system, which is compelling the 
working class to sell their labour power to 
the owner of the capital. 

 
One should discover the meaning 

beneath the story to get into the sense of 
Akutagawa criticism. As it is suggested by 
Tambling: 

 
The other meaning of allegory may 
conceal a secret significance, in that it 
may persuade readers to probe for 
another meaning, it may enrich the 
meaning that has been given, or it may 
draw attention to a split between the 
surface meaning and what is underneath 
(2010: 28). 
 
The surface story of Akutagawa’s Kappa 

is about the institutionalized mass slaughter 
of unemployed Kappas and how Kappas are 
allowed to eat the flesh of working class 
Kappa who are fired and replaced them by 
the machines. This story should not be read 
literally. Rather, it should be understood as 
an allegory. The mass slaughter might 
suggest a criticism toward the class relation 
and the nature of capitalism in Japan during 
Taisho period. By its very nature, capitalism 
is exploitative. It enables the subjection of the 
working class by the owner of the means of 
production. Additionally, the way capitalists 
generate their profit by extracting working 
class’ surplus value is a form of exploitation. 

 

Mass unemployment in Kappaland that 
leads to mass slaughter is an exaggeration 
used by Akutagawa to show that the working 
class is subjected by the capitalists. In the 
capitalistic mode of production, the 
proletariat are compelled to sell their labour 
power. In fact, the working class in Japan also 
happened to face the unemployment in the 
early 20th century, as Kato suggests: 

 
Needless to say, the 1920s were from the 
beginning characterized by a large amount 
of unemployment. Little of the enormous 
profit from the war reached the working 
class, who first suffered from low wages, 
then inflation, and then from the threat of 
unemployment. They thus had little or no 
hope of escaping misery in crowded urban 
industrial areas, and some workers 
protested, petitioned, went on strike, 
demonstrated in the streets, and often 
clashes with police. For the first time in 
modern Japan, labor conflict became a 
social problem of importance (1998:32). 

 
However, the mass killing and 

cannibalism do not take place in Japan. This is 
the form of exaggeration in the allegory to 
strengthen the idea that capitalism might kill 
the working class once their labor power is 
no longer compelling to be used in the 
process of production. The unemployed 
working class is unable to afford the living, 
including the meal and shelter once their 
source of income is cut off. Moreover, they 
are the class who is deprived of the means of 
production, which is hard to get into the 
process of production, for the only power 
they have is the power over their labor 
power. 

 
The ownership of the means of 

production is centralized to the capitalists. 
The capitalist are those who are not engaged 
in the simple manual labor, but specialized 
privileged work. 

 
In his story Akutagawa also shows how 

capitalism positions the labor power of the 
working class as a commodity, the part of the 
means of production, while the bourgeoisie 
are benefited from exploiting the working 
class. He contests the idea of capitalism by 
creating an allegorical character who is 



Vol. 16 No. 2 – October 2016 

197 

attributed with the label of ‘capitalist’. The 
description is shown in Inmate No. 23’s 
comment on Gael’s appearance and his 
nature. Inmate No. 23 says that Gael is “the 
capitalist to end all capitalist” (Akutagawa, 
2009: 81). This capitalist Kappa is used by 
Akutagawa to show how capitalism works in 
Kappaland. First, Gael invites the narrator to 
one of the factories in Kappaland which 
produces a mass number of books. In the 
factory, Inmate No. 23 observes the 
demonstration of how the book production is 
held and describes it as 

In Kappaland, all they do to produce a 
book is to pour paper, ink and a grey-
looking powder into a funnel-mouthed 
machine. The ingredients are fed into the 
machine and, in barely five seconds, they 
are ejected as octavos, duodecimos, royal 
octavos and so on (Akutagawa, 2009) 

The production of books in Kappaland is 
quick and resulted in very plentiful number. 
However, the critic lays on the substitution of 
working class Kappas with the highly 
mechanized tools. This critic is supported by 
the setting and characters that Akutagawa 
employs in the allegory. Gael tells Inmate No. 
23 that in an average month Kappaland sees 
the invention of as many as seven or eight 
hundred new devices of this kind. This shows 
how in Kappanese “the process of introducing 
mass production is going ahead at very rapid 
pace” (Akutagawa, 2009:83). As a result of 
this mass production, no less than forty or 
even fifty thousand Kappas lost their jobs. 

The second criticism of the capitalist 
mode of production is targeted to the role of 
the State and its apparatuses in supporting 
the exploitation of the working class. The fact 
that the mass production in Kappaland 
sacrifices the occupation of thousands of 
working class Kappas and the cannibalism is 
issued by the State as the simple escape 
mechanism shows that the State is ruled by 
the capitalist ideology. Pep, Kappa Judge, 
makes it clear that Kappas “have a statute 
covering the butchery of the worker” 
(Akutagawa, 2009: 84). 

Moreover, Pep emphasizes that the State 
does the mass killing as humane as possible 

to be seen as the savior of those unemployed 
Kappas by saying that “by such action, the 
state takes over and saves a man all the 
bother of suicide or death by starvation” 
(Akutagawa, 2009:84). At this point, 
Akutagawa aims an attack to criticize the 
nature of the State as it is suggested by 
Althusser: 

The State is a ‘machine’ of repression, 
which enables the ruling classes (in the 
nineteenth century the bourgeois class 
and the ‘class’ of big landowners) to 
ensure their domination over the working 
class, thus enabling the former to subject 
the latter to the process of surplus-value 
extortion (i.e. to capitalist exploitation) 
(Althusser, 1971:137). 

The reproduction of the relation of 
production should be ensured by the power 
of the state. Thus, in this sense, the State and 
its apparatuses, including the Army, Police, 
the media and political party are the agent of 
capitalists to dominate the working class and 
extort their surplus value. 

Conclusion 

Starting with analyzing the parallels 
between the world of Kappa and the real the 
world of Japan in the early 20th century, this 
thesis aims to prove that Kappa is a social and 
political representation of the world in which 
the author, Akutagawa lived. The elements 
that are scrutinized in the first problem 
formulation is the allegorical characters, 
allegorical setting, and allegorical events. 
Those elements signify the life-likeness of the 
real Japan. 

The rapid industrialization, the war 
between neighboring countries, the vicious 
cycle of capitalism and the restriction of 
establishing union labor as well as halting the 
strikes aims to accommodate the interest of 
the working class are highlighted as the 
surface and beneath of the story. In getting 
this clear picture of meaning, the writer of 
this thesis employed the theory of allegory. 

The result of the first problem 
formulation leads to the second problem 
formulation, which is how this allegory used 



Rosa Vania Setiowati & Elisa Dwi Wardani 

198 

to criticize the ideology of capitalism in Japan. 
The allegorical characters, the setting, and 
significant events are employed  by the  
author  to  direct  the  reader  to  certain  
meaning in  the  story beneath. These 
elements of allegory are employed to criticize 
human’s lacks and shortcomings, that 
sometimes they are not aware of. 

 
Kappa, the mythological creature, is 

deliberately chosen by the author to exploit 
certain values. By exaggerating its tendency 
and actions Akutagawa presents a deformed 
mirror to human. It is to signify that humans 
are as disgusting as Kappa. Inmate No. 23 
becomes the representation of innocent but 
critical man, the idealization of human in 
general. This specially protected person in 
Kappaland, is unaware of its shortcomings 
and tend to criticize the practice of Kappa. 
The characters of Kappa are attributed to 
certain values and characteristics. Gael is 
attributed with the opportunist, profit-
oriented, and capitalist nature. Mag is 
regarded as a Kappa with the critical thinking 
and depth analysis, to answer the difference 
between Kappaland and the human world. In 
addition, Lap is the Kappa students who 
guided and accompanied Inmate No. 23 to 
know the Kappaland better. 

  
In addition, the second problem 

formulation contains the question of how this 
allegorical Kappaland criticizes the practices 
in the human world. The theory of the 
ideology contributes in explaining how the 
ideology of capitalism is internalized to 
ensure the existence of the State with the 
capitalist mode of production. 

 
Using the theory formulated by the 

French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser, 
the writer of this thesis found that the 
Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) works in 
many channels and ways. It goes along with 
the system of politics and through the media. 
Those two essential elements are, in fact, 
controlled by the Kappa capitalist, Gael. What 
this fact signifies is that in the real human 
world, there are apparatuses, the Ideological 
State Apparatuses, which are hand in hand, 
reproducing the means of production, and to 
ensure the relation of production i.e. 

domination and exploitation by the ruling 
class to the working class continues. 

 
At the end of analysis, it is proved that 

allegory in Akutagawa’sKappa is a device to 
criticize the life of Japanese society in the 
early 20th century. First, Akutagawa employs 
the Kappas as the reflection of human in 
Japan whose mode of production is a 
capitalistic way. It tends to subject the 
working class Japanese similar to what 
Kappanese do to their working class. Second, 
through the exaggeration, Akutagawa shows 
that the ideology of capitalism is in its very 
nature exploitative. 

 
 
 
 
 

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	pheno vol 16 - 2.pdf
	(3) Artikel 1 - Putu (Arina) ed-2
	(4) Artikel 2 - Indri (Arina) ed-1
	(5) Artikel 3 - Ose (hir) ed-2
	(6) Artikel 4 - Alvian & Anna (Arina) ed-2
	(7) Artikel 5 - Eilen & Hir (hir) ed-2
	(8) Artikel 6 - Elisabeth Ratih & ni Luh (hir) ed-2
	(9) Artikel 7 - Munthe & Ria (Arina) ed-2
	(10) Artikel 8 - Rosa Vania & Elisa (hir) ed-2
	(11) Artikel 9 - Pramesthi & Mul (hir) ed-2
	(13) Index  - Vol 16 No 2 Oktober 2016-1
	(14) Contributor's Notes-1