Abstract
Castellini analyses representations of a maternal potential for violence in literary works by Japanese writer Takahashi Takako. He shows how Takahashi’s anti-heroines grope for words as they try to voice the darkest shades of their maternal turmoil, exposing the repeated failure of existing understandings of motherhood to translate “maternal darkness” into a realm of cultural intelligibility. Castellini foregrounds the extent to which Takahashi’s writings resonate with the rhetoric of ūman ribu and reads her early stories as the manifestation in literary form of a programmatic effort to challenge cultural prescriptions of femininity and appropriate maternal behaviour. He draws attention to Takahashi’s denunciation of the gendered violence of Japanese language and how that effects the harmful “naturalization” of a highly romanticized mother–child bond.
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In light of these considerations, the title of Nakayama Kazuko’s ([1986] 2006) classic survey of contemporary Japanese women’s fiction acquires a distinct tone. In the essay “The Subject of Women’s Literature and the Transformation of Its Consciousness” (“Joryū bungaku to sono ishiki henkaku no shudai”), Nakayama refers to the feminist movement and feminist thought of the 1970s, and although she never explicitly mentions ribu, her use of the expression ishiki henkaku (consciousness transformation) in the title suggestively evokes one of the key philosophical tenets of the newly emergent women’s liberation movement in Japan. Whether or not the result of a conscious stylistic choice, the title of her essay seems to portray the new anti-heroines of women’s literature in postwar Japan as participating in that broader transformation of female consciousness which constituted one of ribu’s most radical political purposes. Nakayama’s piece, therefore, anticipates Bullock’s intuition in portraying women’s writing and feminist praxis of political contestation as partaking of a comparable project of social transformation and expansion of our capacity to imagine gender otherwise. An analogous take on the subject can be found in the edited collection Ribu to iu “kakumei”: gendai no yami wo hiraku (2003) Kanō Mikiyo (ed.) Tokyo: Inpakuto Shuppankai.
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Ōba Minako represents one such example of “resisting woman writer” (Ericson, 2006: 114): many of her short stories such as “The Three Crabs” (“Sanbiki no kani,” 1968), “Ship-Eating Worms” (“Funakui mushi,” 1970) and “Dream of Hemlock” (“Tsuga no yume,” 1971) and the much famous “The Smile of a Mountain Witch” (“Yamauba no bishō,” [1976] 1991) portray mothers and housewives whose subjectivity is unconnected to husbands, children, friends and social surroundings. Ōba goes as far as to make one of the characters in “The Three Crabs” argue that “[i]n the twentieth century, pregnancy is not a symbol of fertility but of sterility and destruction” (1968 [1982]: 97). An earlier, disturbing portrayal of maternal selfishness is provided by acclaimed author Enchi Fumiko (1905–1986) in her probably most representative work Masks (Onnamen, literally “woman’s masks,” 1958 [1983]). For an informative analysis of her work in context, see Carpenter (1990) and Ruch (1994).
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Kōno’s fiction is emblematic in this respect: her female characters embody a unique blend of revulsion towards the maternal, masochistic sexual desires and sadistic fantasies of maternal violence that make stories such as “Ants Swarm” (“Ari takaru,” 1964 [1996]) and “Toddler-Hunting” (“Yōji-gari,” [1961] 1996) exceptionally disturbing readings.
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Takahashi recalls, for example, the many bright male students in the department of French Literature, how they constantly criticized and belittled her and how any woman in such an environment was doomed to lose self-confidence. Her experience at Kyoto University is addressed in numerous essays such as “Takahashi Kazumi to sakka toshite no watashi” [Takahashi Kazumi and my literary career] in Takahashi Kazumi no omoide [Memories of Takahashi Kazumi] (1977), “Otoko no naka no tada hitori” [The only one among men] and “Unmei no wakareme” [Fateful departure] in Tamashii no inu (1975) and “Danjo kyōgaku” [Coeducation] in Kioku no kurasa (1977).
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For several years after they married Takahashi undertook odd jobs as secretary, translator, tutor of French and English and tour guide in order to support them both and to help Kazumi devote himself to writing.
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Takahashi describes how she used to write the fair copies of Kazumi early pieces, sometimes working on a tight schedule made even more demanding by Kazumi’s habit of handing over to her full chapters to be copied on the very morning of the day when they were due to the editor.
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“Takahashi Kazumi to sakka to shite no watashi,” in Takahashi Kazumi no omoide (1977a: 93).
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“Naze shuen ni naru no ka?” [Why does it turn into a drinking party?] in Takahashi, Takahashi Kazumi to iu hito [Remembering Takahashi Kazumi] (1997a: 79). See also “‘Hi no utsuwa’ jushō zengo” [Before and after the reception of the prize for “Vessel of Sadness”] in Takahashi, Takahashi Kazumi no omoide (1977a: 77–84).
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“Watashi no noirōze no koto” [Concerning my neurosis] in Takahashi, Sakai ni ite [Standing on the border] (1997: 122–29).
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Maryellen T. Mori, (2004: xi).
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The Kansai region includes the prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and the surrounding area.
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“Shakaiteki atsuryoku unnun no koto” [Social pressure and so forth] in Takahashi (1997b), 130–32.
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In her essays she makes wide reference to artists such as Marc Chagall, Giorgio De Chirico, Edvard Munch and Caspar David Friedrich and to authors as varied as Charles Baudelaire, E.T.A. Hoffman, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.
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“Karumeru-kai shudōin” [The Carmelite convent] in Takahashi Kioku no kurasa [174–8].
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For an extensive investigation of the roles of androgynous boys in such female narratives of awakenings, see Maryellen T. Mori, “The Liminal Male as Liberatory Figure in Japanese Women’s Fiction” (2000).
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Takahashi has often been identified with the so-called introverted generation (naikō no sedai), a cluster of distinguished writers such as Furui Yoshikichi and Mori Makiko whose literature turns away from overt social and political commentary in order to privilege an investigation of postwar Japan’s sense of identity crisis and change through an inward gaze and the exploration of its characters’ inner or spiritual dimension.
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Ōba Minako and Takahashi Takako, “Taidan–Sei toshite no onna” [Conversations: Woman as sexual being] (1979: 86).
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This is an element that “Summer Abyss” has in common with many of the stories considered in this chapter and which seems to suggest a condition of isolation characterizing the experience of numerous female characters within the institution of the family. As a matter of fact, even on those occasions when a husband is indeed present, the protagonist’s deep sense of alienation and radical incommunicability constitutes a leitmotif throughout the narrative.
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“Summer Abyss” first appeared in November 1973 in the pages of the literary journal Bungakukai and was reprinted in February 1974 as part of the collection The Lost Picture (Ushinawareta e). Page numbers refer to the story’s original appearance. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.
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See Introduction, note nr. 6.
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The use of only initials in the original Japanese identifies a fictional topography.
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Haori are hip- or thigh-length garments which serve as light coats to be worn over a kimono.
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The plot of “Incarnation” and this last scene in particular buy into a cultural history of spirit possession in Japanese folklore of which Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji Monogatari (eleventh century) offers the most well-known and discussed literary example. For a rich account of spirit possession in this classic of Heian literature, see D.G. Bargen, A Woman’s Weapon. Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (1997). See also W. Pounds “Enchi Fumiko and the Hidden Energy of the Supernatural” (1990).
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See Chap. 3.
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The short story “Lonely Woman” originally appeared in 1974 on the pages of the literary magazine Subaru, but was republished in 1977 as part of the homonymous collection of interlocked stories.
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The unnamed protagonist of the story “Kodomosama” (literally Honorable Child, 1969) similarly struggles with increasing fears and ambivalence as she goes through the final stages of her second pregnancy. The opening of the story portrays the mother’s perception of her own heavily pregnant body and conveys an image of pregnancy as threatening and parasitical:
With her right hand she caressed her swollen belly from atop the dress made from Indian chintz. Through the thin material her skin felt a bit sweaty. Even the fabric was slightly warm and damp. Probably because of that, from within the dyed pattern of people, animals, birds and flowers, the vermillion of the flowers seemed to stand out vividly. The big petals of an obscene carnivorous plant blooming in a tropical forest appeared as if they had suddenly expanded on her belly. (Takahashi, 1969: 55)
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While the parallel between Takahashi’s wording and ribu’s rhetoric is way too obvious to be ignored, I don’t want to overload an already lengthy chapter with such considerations. I will postpone my reflections about any overlap in terms of imagery and vocabulary to the Conclusions.
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The multiunit, urban housing estates known as danchi became the typical accommodation of post-World War II families. During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the Japan Housing Corporation, founded in 1955, built many such low-rent apartment complexes in the outskirts of urban areas to confront the housing demands of the Japanese growing population. With the proliferation of consumer and electrical goods, the danchi became envisioned as the modern housing for the now expanding Japanese middle class. See Hoshino (1964), Waswo (2002) and Ronald (2007).
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The old woman in Takahashi’s story may remind a reader well-versed in Japanese literature of the yamamba (or yamauba), a well-known figure of Japanese folklore who appears in the literary tradition sometimes as an old woman who lives alone in the mountains, sometimes as a man-eater female demon or even a cannibal mother figure, just to name a few of her most striking manifestations (Viswanathan, 1996; Yamaori, 1997; Fisher, 1997; Hulvey, 1999; Reider, 2005).
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Castellini, A. (2017). Filicide and Maternal Animosity in Takahashi Takako’s Early Fiction. In: Translating Maternal Violence. Thinking Gender in Transnational Times. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53882-6_5
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