Understanding this passage in 羅生門 that uses ばかりではない


I was reading 羅生門 by 芥川龍之介, and in the last part this sentence show up.

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    下人は、饑死をするか盗人になるかに、迷わなかったばかりではない。
    
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I don't quite understand the last verb + ばかり + ではない: the double negation in
Japanese means an affirmation (right?), but even with this I don't understand.

I think 羅生門 is quite popular, but for the sake of context, I post the whole
paragraph.

>
> 下人は、太刀を鞘におさめて、その太刀の柄を左の手でおさえながら、冷然として、この話を聞いていた。勿論、右の手では、赤く頬に膿を持った大きなにきびを気にしながら、聞いているのである。しかし、これを聞いている中に、下人の心には、ある勇気が生まれて来た。それは、さっき門の下で、この男には欠けていた勇気である。そうして、またさっきこの門の上へ上って、この老婆を捕えた時の勇気とは、全然、反対な方向に動こうとする勇気である。
> **下人は、饑死をするか盗人になるかに、迷わなかったばかりではない。**
> その時のこの男の心もちから云えば、饑死などと云う事は、ほとんど、考える事さえ出来ないほど、意識の外に追い出されていた。




It's similar to the "not only ... but also ..." construction in English. (In
fact, it might have started as a translation of that.) It might look tricky
when the first part stands as a sentence, but usually the second part is
explicitly written in the next sentence, or otherwise implied somehow.

  * ばかり = only
  * ではない = not
  * ばかりではない = not only ...
  * なかったばかりではない = not only had [he] no ...

The gist of the last two sentences is:

> Not only did he have no hesitation [on the choice] between starving himself
> to death and robbing someone, but [furthermore] starving was entirely out of
> the question in his mind.

I combined the two because it seems to make more sense in English that way.
However, I don't think this difference is crucial. I think you can say
something similar in two sentences in English, too. You can replace ばかりではない
with ばかりでなく and combine the two sentences - the difference between the
construction before and after the change is minimal, and both are normal.

> the double negation in Japanese means an affirmation

In this case, the outer negation is applied to the "only" part and not to the
verb - it means "not only" = "there is more". So there is only one negation
applied to the verb (迷わなかった) and it is negative.




It's similar to the "not only ... but also ..." construction in English. (In
fact, it might have started as a translation of that.) It might look tricky
when the first part stands as a sentence, but usually the second part is
explicitly written in the next sentence, or otherwise implied somehow.

  * ばかり = only
  * ではない = not
  * ばかりではない = not only ...
  * なかったばかりではない = not only had [he] no ...

The gist of the last two sentences is:

> Not only did he have no hesitation [on the choice] between starving himself
> to death and robbing someone, but [furthermore] starving was entirely out of
> the question in his mind.

I combined the two because it seems to make more sense in English that way.
However, I don't think this difference is crucial. I think you can say
something similar in two sentences in English, too. You can replace ばかりではない
with ばかりでなく and combine the two sentences - the difference between the
construction before and after the change is minimal, and both are normal.

> the double negation in Japanese means an affirmation

In this case, the outer negation is applied to the "only" part and not to the
verb - it means "not only" = "there is more". So there is only one negation
applied to the verb (迷わなかった) and it is negative.

