Yozo and the Guardian Relationship with the Flounder

The relationship between Yozo and Flatfish is one of the most consequential and destructive dynamics in No Longer Human, a bond poisoned not by malice but by a catastrophic failure of communication. Flatfish, an antique dealer and a henchman of Yozo's father, becomes Yozo's guardian after the Kamakura suicide attempt. His face, particularly around the eyes, so resembles a flatfish that Yozo's father always called him by that name, and Yozo himself thinks of him only as "Flatfish." From the moment Yozo is placed in his care, Flatfish's evasive, indirect manner of speech—a reflection of what Yozo sees as the "incomprehensible vanity and love of appearances of the people of the world"—sets in motion a chain of events that seals Yozo's fate.

Guardianship and the Failure of Communication

After Yozo is expelled from college and released from police custody, he is sent to live in a tiny room on the second floor of Flatfish's house near the Okubo Medical School. Flatfish receives a secret monthly allowance from Yozo's brothers for Yozo's support, but he never tells Yozo this. Instead, he keeps Yozo confined to the house, forbidding him to drink or smoke, and treats him with a cold, contemptuous demeanor. Yozo, stripped of all incentive to clown, lies prostrate under Flatfish's disdainful glances and those of the seventeen-year-old shop boy, who treats Yozo like a simpleton. The atmosphere is one of silent, cheerless routine: Flatfish and the boy eat their meals hurriedly in a dank room under the stairs, never inviting Yozo, and the clatter of plates is the only sound. One evening toward the end of March, Flatfish—perhaps after some financial success—invites Yozo downstairs for a rare dinner with sake. During this meal, Flatfish asks Yozo about his future plans, but instead of stating plainly that Yozo's family will support him if he returns to school, he speaks in a maddeningly roundabout way. "If you do not feel like confiding your problems to me I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you," he says, and when Yozo, confused, finally declares he wants to be a painter, Flatfish laughs with an "indescribably crafty shadow" passing over his face—a laugh that reveals to Yozo "the very nadir of adult life." Yozo later realizes that if Flatfish had simply said, "I'd like you to enter a school beginning in the April term. Your family has decided to send you a more adequate allowance once you have entered school," he would have complied. But Flatfish's "intolerably prudent, circumlocutions manner of speech" only irritates Yozo, and this single conversation alters the entire course of his life.

The Runaway and Its Aftermath

That very night, Yozo runs away from Flatfish's house, leaving a note that says he is going to discuss his plans with a friend. He has no real plan; he simply cannot bear the thought of depending on Flatfish for his rehabilitation. Flatfish, upon discovering Yozo's disappearance, sends a telegram to Masao Horiki, which Horiki reads with disgust. The telegram forces Yozo's hand, and he ends up living with the journalist Shizuko, beginning his life as a kept man. Flatfish later participates in a conference with Shizuko and Horiki that formally severs Yozo's ties with his family, and Yozo moves in with Shizuko. Flatfish's role as a guardian effectively ends, but his influence lingers. When Yozo later attempts suicide by overdosing on Dial sleeping pills, it is Flatfish who sits at his bedside in the hospital, wearing a "most unpleasant expression on his face." Flatfish complains to the Madam of the Kyobashi bar, "The last time was also at the end of the year, wasn't it? He always chooses the end of the year, just when everybody is frantically busy. He'll prove the death of me if he keeps on doing such things." He leaves some money for Yozo, pretending it is his own gift, though Yozo now sees through the theatrical airs and understands it comes from his brothers. Yozo humbly thanks him, but the interaction leaves him with a strange feeling—he can and cannot understand why people like Flatfish resort to such complicated tricks.

The Final Betrayal: Institutionalization

The most devastating act of the guardianship occurs when Flatfish, with Horiki in tow, appears at Yozo's apartment on the very afternoon Yozo has resolved to give himself ten shots of morphine and throw himself into the river. Flatfish, seemingly guided by "diabolical intuition," bundles Yozo into an automobile. In a quiet, almost compassionate tone, he tells Yozo he must go to a hospital. Yozo, weeping helplessly, obeys like a man bereft of all will. The car takes him to a large hospital in the woods, where a young doctor with a bashful smile ushers him into a ward. The key grates in the lock behind him. Yozo is in a mental hospital. He realizes that he has been branded a madman, a "reject," and that he has now "ceased utterly to be a human being." Flatfish's final act as guardian is not to save Yozo but to deliver him into the hands of an institution that confirms his deepest fear: that he is disqualified from human life. Three months later, when the cosmos are blooming, Yozo's eldest brother and Flatfish come to take him out. His father has died. His brother tells him he must leave Tokyo and begin his convalescence in the country. Flatfish will take care of his commitments. Yozo nods faintly, feeling as though the vessel of his suffering has become empty. The relationship ends not with reconciliation but with Yozo's complete erasure—a man reduced to a passive object, shuffled from one guardian to another, his fate decided by the very people who never once spoke to him with clarity or trust.