虚構

• 読み: きょこう
• ローマ字: kyokou
• 漢字の分解: 虚 (kyo) — empty, hollow, false; 構 (kou) — structure, construct, compose
• 発音: /kʲo.koː/

意味

Fiction; fabrication; a constructed narrative or reality that is not factual. Refers both to literary fiction and to deliberately maintained falsehoods in public discourse.

A noun used in two main contexts: (1) literary or imaginative fiction as a distinct mode from reality — the narrative frame within which stories operate; (2) a deliberately constructed myth or sustained falsehood used to uphold a social or political system. In cultural criticism, 虚構 prompts the question of what we accept as real.

例文

1. 小説は虚構でありながら、現実の本質を深く照らし出すことがある。
2. 国民を統治するために作られた虚構は、やがて崩壊することが多い。
3. 彼は自分が作り上げた虚構の中で生きることに疲れを感じていた。

使い方ガイド

場面: literature, media criticism, philosophy

トーン: analytical

起源と歴史

Compound of 虚 (empty, hollow, false) and 構 (structure, compose, set up). Together they describe a built structure with no true foundation — a constructed fiction.

文化的背景

時代: Modern

世代: All ages

社会的背景: Intellectual