The main background of ‘Confessions’ is a normal school. The homeroom teacher, Yuko, says her four-year-old daughter is murdered by her class at the school where she works. The story begins with the teacher confessing this murder case like a speech in front of her students on the day of the closing ceremony. Yuko is the parent who lost her daughter and couldn’t protect her daughter, and at the same time, she is a teacher who has a duty to guide her students in the right way. She confesses about the law and order, ethics, and moral ideas in a calm and grim tone, in front of the criminals in her class who killed her daughter. Everyone is quietly holding their breath.
The incident begins with the death of Yuko's only four-year-old daughter, Manami. Manami was found drowned in the pool, but in fact, it was done by Yuko's students Naoki and Shuya. Shuya wanted to get his mother's attention by killing Manami, and Naoki pushed Manami into the pool to show Shuya, who ignored him as a loser. After Yuko got to know about the truth, she collected blood from her husband and injected the HIV virus into Naoki and Shuya's milk. Naoki didn’t show up at school repeating strange behaviors while at home and eventually murdered his mother. Shuya was bullied at first, then got along with Mizuki, who was the class leader, and accidentally killed Mizuki. He tries to get his mother’s attention by installing a bomb in the school, but the bomb explodes in the lab where Shuya's mother is, and the story ends.
I really enjoyed ‘Confessions’ in the movie, so this time while I read this story as a novel, I focused on each character and the narrative styles of this book. The overall flow of the novel proceeds as the characters involved in this murder case share stories with their own point of view in an omnibus-style composition. Therefore, the murder that each character sees is expressed in different ways, having completely different meanings with their own view. If you saw the insanity of children through the teacher’s confession, the world seen through the eyes of children was a space full of lies and selfishness of adults. Perhaps the cruel and mad behaviors of children may be the immaturity arising from themselves by being exposed to the world full of lies and the selfishness of adults. On the other hand, even if it is a crime by an immature ego, is it reasonable to not receive any legal sanction for being young?
Both Naoki and Shuya didn't have a good childhood environment. Naoki was a timid child who couldn't live up to his mother's expectations, and Shuya was abused by his mother and left alone. Would the story have changed if their mother had been interested in their son a little more?
However, no matter how much childhood influences there are, there is no justification for murder. Not all of them who have had a hard childhood commit murder. Although the hardships that they had experienced provided the cause, it was themselves who chose to murder.
When I watched the movie ‘Confessions’, I was quite surprised by the theme of the story. This novel deals with the themes that cannot be easily determined and choose between right and wrong. But the pace of the story development and the narrative stories through various viewpoints were very interesting.
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