No Longer Human By Osamu Dazai

This book is a work of fiction however the it is written semi-autobiographical as the main character Yozo's life parallels that of the author. Yozo's depression and alienation in society stem from Dazais own thoughts.

Around this age is when Yozo begins his spiral into madness. He shows the trope of the sad clown in this stage as he does antics in order to appease those around him. He constantly feel alienization as he feels that he can never truly be himself or else society will cast him away and this terrifies him, so when a class member begins to call out his antics calling them staged he is mortified and aims to befriend him only in order keep up his act.

During his first year of College Yozo meets an upper-class men Horriki. Horriki will go on to have major impact in yozos life. Horriki will introduce Yozo to a cult of "comrades" along with re-igniting his interest in art. During his freshemn year of college Yozo will fail to find motivation for studying and fail out of college. As his parents where supporting him financially as long as he was in college he doesn't tell them about this. Yozo continues his downward spiral as he uses his money to buy booze at a bar he frequents. As he was there daily he finds a women who has a lot of similarities with Yozo's own misfortune. However instead of finding salvation in another they both fall into greater despair leading them to commit double suicide by jumping into the river. Yozo was pulled out of the river and saved by some passerby however the women drowned. This is the first major that makes Yozo a lunatic in the eyes of society. After his family hears of this he gets disowned by them and is never allowed to return home. With no=one to go to he turns to a family friend named "flatfish" where he lives most of his early adulthood as a shut-in.

After 2 years of living with flatfish Yozo come to a realization that he is taking away flatfish's possibility of happiness and see's himself as only a bother for flatfish. This leads to him running away. Once again with no one to turn to he heads to Horiki's house. Once there Horiki is indifferent to Yozo's arrival he says hes really busy being a writer for a newspaper and has a meeting in 5 minutes. Then a women appears being Horiki's editor. Yozo stays during the meating and notices that the women keeps looking at his direction. They soon leave Horiki's house and head to a bar. They talk and then decide to have Yozo move in with her and her daughter. The women is never named only ever referred to as the madam from the bar in Kyobashi. Some years pass Yozo is now an comic artist for the newspaper that the women works for. Once again his alcoholic tendencies lead him to have existential crisis's even though he has lived with the Madam and her daughter he see's himself as an obstacle for their happiness, even though it wa clear the women loved him. One day after he spent the day drinking he comes home and see how happy the and Daughter were just by playing with each other. This leads him to once again run away.

After running away from his past relation ship a few years pass and Yozo is a freelance comic writer who lives in a small apartment near a convenience store. Everyday he would drunkenly stop by the store and see a young girl around the age of 17 who would tell him that drinking is bad for him. This continues for a while until she says that if he stops drinking she will marry him, he agrees. For a while it seems as Yozo's life is stable however Horiki one day shows up to his door. Once again Horiki leads him into his path of despair once again getting him into drinking. Once more Yozo becomes distant with his wife this leads to her getting violated by a man that Yozo drew comics for. This is Yozo's true breaking point as his alcoholism only got worse and then he even got addicted to morphine. Flatfish finds him along with Horiki and he is put into a mental institution.

Afterwards Yozo spends his time in the mental institute once again realizing that he is a reject from society he become utterly broken. He is 27 when he is finally released and though he is only in his late 20's it would be easy to say he looks at least 50. Rather than try rejoining society his family sends him to live with a servant in a remote decrepit house. This is where the tale of Oba Yozo ends and a year later would be the end of Dazais story as he would commit suicide shortly after publication of No longer human.

Years after the story of Oba is over Osamu Dazai walks into a coffee shop and meets the "madam of a bar in Kyobashi" a integral character in the notebooks and gives him the notebooks telling him that he should publish them. At first he discredits the notebooks but what truly intrigued were the 3 haunting photos that came with them. He gives them a read and comes to hate Yozo and everything he perceived. He returns to the coffee shop and asks the madam what she thinks of him. She call him a good kid "rather he was and angel". A year after the final draft of No longer human was turned in The author Osamu Dazai would go on an commit a double suicide with his wife.