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Uncanny Reactions to Modernization Sugita Kojo of Tayama Katai’s “The Girl Watcher” (1907) and the chair maker in Edogawa Rampo’s “The Human Chair” (1925) react to new ways of life in a similar, vulgar manner. Both stories include aspects of society new to that time: Trains and chairs, respectively. These pieces from the Meiji & Taisho period, a period where stories began to express the character’s thoughts, depict the importance of understanding novel and foreign aspects of daily life by showing how these modern ways of living may be used inappropriately. Sugita, the protagonist in “The Girl Watcher,” has several responsibilities: his job, wife, and children. However, his passion is watching young, wealthy girls on trains. Yes. Why does he choose this particular “hobby”? These girls attend expensive high schools and can be considered modern in both age and appearance. According to lecture, trains were a new space where people of different social classes mixed, and people had to learn to act appropriately and how to look at other passengers. Right! With much practice, Sugita has figured out how to watch young women on trains, abusing this new form of travel: “It’s too direct to watch them face on, whereas from a distance it’s…likely to arouse people’s suspicions; therefore, the most convenient seat to occupy is one diagonally opposite” (Katai, 175). Yes. This is one of my favorite quotes in the story. Sugita is not an ordinary man, his walk is odd and he is unpleasant to the eye. However, he lives a mundane and depressing life writing for a magazine. Sugita watches girls to restore his passion for life, to engage in the modern world: “was there no one who would embrace him in her white arms? If only someone would, then he was sure …he would discover life…in hard work. Fresh blood would flow through his veins” (page 180). He wishes he could be rescued. Young women remind Sugita of his youth, of things he wanted to do but never did, such as make passionate love. Katai may be saying that once things modernize, one must become entirely modern to survive in society. Sugita lives in a modern house, wears western clothes (considered modern at the time), but he does not live a modern life: “he was coming out …in his same old way along his same old route, wish his same old hat…” (Katai, 170).
Ukiyo is a culture that strives to live a strictly pleasure-seeking routine. The largest flaw in this way of life, as Saikaku points out, is that its superficial nature forces people to live lives as meaningless and fluffy as its name, the “Floating World,” suggests. It is shallow in the physical sense, in that it focuses primarily on “beautiful” external appearances, and in the metaphorical sense, whereby individuals never really make deep-seated connections to anyone because of their addiction to finding these so-called pleasures. One particular character that Saikaku satirizes to embody this superficial nature of Ukiyo is the old, rotting woman found on the verandah in the episode of “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple.” He cleverly employs situational irony with this character to prove his point, as it is expected for the archetypal old woman to pass moral lessons to the younger generation. By the character’s own, sorrowful admission she claims that she “can’t forget about sex” and is going to “bite right into” (Saikaku 614) the protagonist; completely the opposite of what the audience expects her to say. This satire highlights the extent to which the Ukiyo lifestyle socially conditions individuals; the old woman is so far gone down that path that she no l...
Though unbeknownst to many, the experience of being an outsider is a sensation that everyone can go through. In the world, it is entirely possible for a person to be judged on physical appearance, opinions, and status among other things. It is simply how humans have adapted; they experience society by forming social groups that they are comfortable in. Generally, this group is seen to those involved with it as the “inside group”, and those not directly related to it are seen as “outsiders.” Even in literature, it is clear that the feeling of being one of these outsiders is universal. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Fences by Pat Mora, and The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield all properly display how anyone can be an outsider.
Gatten, Aileen. "Review: Criticism and the Genji." The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 22.1 (1988): 84. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
Much about Kogawa's novel makes it difficult not only to read but also to classify or categorize. First, Obasan blurs the line between nonfiction and fiction. Kogawa draws from actual letters and newspaper accounts, autobiographical details, and historical facts throughout the novel, but she artistically incorporates this material into a clearly fictional work. In addition, Kogawa's narrative operates on multiple levels, from the individual and familial to the communal, national, political, and spiritual. Stylistically, the novel moves easily between the language of documentary reportage and a richly metaphorical language, and between straightforward narrative and stream-ofconsciousness exposition. This astonishing variety in Kogawa's novel can, at times, become bewildering and unsettling to the reader. But as many readers and critics have noted, Kogawa's style and method in Obasan also constitute the novel's unique strength. Kogawa writes in such a way that ambiguity, uncertainty, irony, and paradox do not weaken her story but instead paradoxically become the keys to understanding it.
A maiden aunt never marries because a river prawn bites her calf and, due to minimal treatment by her physician, nestles there to grow. She devotes her life to her nieces, making for them life-sized dolls on their birthdays and wedding days. When only the youngest niece is left at home, the doctor comes to see his patient and brings his son, also a physician. When the son realizes the father could have cured the leg, the doctor says, "I wanted you to see the prawn that has paid for your education these twenty years."
In the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is a story that everyone can related to. The story is about a mother telling her daughter what to do, what not to do and how to do things. Kind of like society or parents or a friends of what to do. There has also been always been expectations of what to do and how to do things in life regards of gender, nationality or religion. The male has he’s duties and the female has different duties. However, in the typical society today, a person is supposed to graduate from high school and go straight in to an Ivy League university, to get a degree in a field of study that makes lot of money. While working a person must save money for that dream big house with the white picket fence. At the same time, you have to look for that perfect spouse so you can have the big beautiful dream wedding. After the wedding it’s the romantic honeymoon to Bora Bora. After a couple years the baby comes, and you are a happy family. Typically, that is what parents teach their children of what is what is expected of them.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
In this modern day and age, the epitome of manliness, at least to the Western world, includes a few main things – masculinity, or physical strength, mental acuity, and being an emotional rock – one who is emotionally stable and almost stoic, capable of comforting and lending strength. The modern epitome of womanliness is one encompassing sensuousness, gentility, emotion, cunning, and more and more often, strength of mind. This plays in stark contrast with the Japanese Heian-era notions of the ideal man and woman as portrayed in Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji. When assessing these ideals, one must also take into account the fact that this novel describes the somewhat atypical Japanese Heian court life as opposed to the daily life of commoners.
The critic Hirano Ken who is one of the members claims that since the 1920s both junbugaku and proletarian literature had shared same issue, anxiety for realism, however the distinction between junbungaku and taishubungaku was a calculated political move on the part of the bundan to distance itself from works of mass appeal. In 1923, after the Kanto earthquake, there was a boom in proletarian literature and the reaction of most critics was negative, because it was based on the injustices of the bourgeoisie against the working class. With the appearing taishubungaku in 1930s, there had been much argument for the junbungaku; some sees junbungaku as an ideal form of literary expression, some defines in ‘pure’ literature there are certain types of themes that are easily handled, and others are difficult to write about. Hirano’s view is that junbungaku as an artificial concept, a construct brought about at a critical historical moment by specific members of the bundan, for definite social, political, and aesthetic purpose. While the issues about junbungaku discussed, a new era, postmodern moment had arrived and the concerns of junbungaku are changing. In 1953, the television was introduced to Japan and its effect on popular culture was the topic of discussion. Although it did not threat to pure literature directly, the movement to non-traditional fields of art and entertainment was not
Suzuki, Tomi. Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch employs logos and repetition in his closing argument to the jury and people of Maycomb in order to persuade them to see beyond their prejudice and free Tom Robinson.
Shirane Haruo. et al. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Colombia University Press, 2002. Print.
Today women are being mistreated for just the gender roles and stereotypes that revolve in the human society. Depending on the time period and culture, women are expected to act in a certain way. Throughout history, many relationships can be found in different cultures regarding the way women were treated. In Ibsen’s A Doll’s house, Nora reflects the responsibilities and roles of Norwegian women during the late 1870s. Torvald, Nora’s husband, also shows the way men treated women and what roles they played in a marriage. Here, women are portrayed as dependent on men, they don’t have much freedom, and they are not allowed to have opinions. Women are taught to rely on men and be acquiescent to their husbands. Many stereotypes and gender roles found in A Doll’s House can also be observed in
In Doll’s House,” Ibsen presents us with the drama of Torvald and Nora Helmer, a husband and wife who have been married for eight years. Nora leaves at the end of the play because she just want to experience her freedom, also she is tired of her husband torald treats her like his doll. Nora independence would affect the kids and her marriage positively. After she left her husband, she would be able to build herself to be a woman every man would want to marry because she has learnt from her past experience. If Nora will return to the home she will have learned self-discipline and her kids will have to learn how to be independent because that will be all Nora is used to, so she will not accept any other behavior that the kids learnt with their father. In the end the kids will benefit because when they want and need something they will know how to work for it. But if she stay the children may struggle to find their independence When we see the relationship of Nora and Torvalds We hear a reference to her father, whom Nora says is