Thesis title: Scrittura e strategie diegetiche di rappresentazione della depressione maggiore nella letteratura giapponese contemporanea.
This dissertation examines the representation of major depression and suicide—particularly suicide linked to depressive disorders—in contemporary Japanese literature, in relation to sociocultural, legal, and linguistic contexts. The study is divided into two main sections: a theoretical framework and an analytical section. The theoretical section traces the evolution of perceptions and treatments of mental illness in Japan from 1900 to 2020, with particular attention to legislative developments, the role of women in informal caregiving, and the influence of feminist movements on literary production and social awareness. The analytical section focuses on six contemporary Japanese novels (2000–2022), three by female authors and three by male authors, whose protagonists experience depressive symptoms, social isolation, or suicidal ideation. Each novel is analyzed regarding its literary genre, the terminology employed, the social context depicted, and the diegetic strategies adopted. Additionally, the dissertation offers a linguistic analysis of terms related to depression and suicide, exploring their semantic shifts in relation to changes in the broader cultural context. Finally, it discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emergence of new representations of psychological distress, as well as the role of literature as a tool for social critique and mental health prevention.