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HOME > Archives > 2026 > Volume 12 Number 1 (2026) >
IJLLL 2026 Vol.12(1): 33-38
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2026.12.1.627

Who is Kogito Choko in the Novels of Kenzaburo Ōe?: Allowing “The Child” to Speak as an Author’s Introspection

Norman Ralph B. Isla
Department of English, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Mindanao State University–General Santos City, General Santos City, Philippines
Email: normanralph.isla@msugensan.edu.ph (N.R.B.I.)

Manuscript received September 15, 2025; accepted December 26, 2025; published February 27, 2026.

Abstract—Kenzaburo Ōe became Japan’s second Nobel Prize winner for Literature. He is one of the several postwar authors who wrote stories about disaffection, loss of purpose, and trauma. Kogito Choko is a character in two novels of Ōe, “Changeling” (2000) and “Death by Water” (2009). This study re-examined who “Kogito Choko” is and how he relates to the introspection of Kenzaburo Ōe. This study is qualitative and used content analysis as a method. The researcher purposively selected the novels of Ōe; the researcher used Caroline Myss’ concept of “Child” for the data analysis. The researcher used Formalism to characterize Kogito and further employed the Psychoanalysis Approach to analyze Kogito in each novel and find his struggles. Based on the study, Kogito is a child archetype. According to Myss (2020), the mature personality of the Child archetype nurtures that part of us that yearns to be lighthearted and innocent, expecting the wonders of tomorrow, regardless of age. This aspect of human nature significantly contributes to our ability to sense playfulness in our lives, thereby balancing the seriousness of adult responsibilities. In Changeling, the survival archetype Kogito represents is the Dependent Child. He is in a way that, even before they grew up, he has always been dependent on Goro. He was able to experience things that he could not do alone. In Death by Water, Kogito is a Wounded Child. Although parental figures did not physically wound Kogito, he was emotionally tormented by the death of his father and the truth that was withheld from him. Not until his old age did, he learned that there was nothing more than the suicide of his father. Far from his expectations of a heroic father. His being a wounded child also led him to help another wounded character from the novel. Kogito is an introspective instrument of Ōe’s deepening of the theme in his novels. Only Ōe, intentionally or not, sketched carefully Kogito to unpredictably predict the trajectory of the plots in his two novels and how characters react naturally.

Keywords—characters in fiction, Kenzaburo Ōe, author’s introspection, psychoanalysis

Cite: Norman Ralph B. Isla, "Who is Kogito Choko in the Novels of Kenzaburo Ōe?: Allowing “The Child” to Speak as an Author’s Introspection," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 33-38, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

 

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