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"The Infant in the Void": A spiritual journey
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"The Infant in the Void": A spiritual journey
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THE INFANT IN THE VOID: A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
by
Irene A. Katsui
A Thesis Presented to the
I FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
[ UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
t
X
| In Partial Fulfillment of the
r
f Requirements for the Degree
[ MASTER OF ARTS
t
(East Asian Languages and Cultures)
August 1997
1997 Irene A. Katsui
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■ • o ^ r m r j r *
UMI Number: 1387822
Copyright 1997 by
Katsui, Irene A.
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 1387822
Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
This microform edition is protected against unauthorized
copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI
300 North Zeeb Road
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
THC GRADUATE SCHOOL.
UNIVERSITY RARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA SO O O ?
This thesis, written by
..
t//
under the direction of h-AQ&JThesis Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre~
stated to and accepted by the JDeun of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
PEfe...May,,,27^1997.
THESIS COMMITTEE
— ~ mn
Ctemwem < •
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Table of Contents
I. The Infant in the Void (Enchi Fumiko’s short story,
”Kokuu no Akamboo", translated by Irene A. Katsui)
....................................... P
II. The Infant in the Voids A Spiritual Journey (A
Spiritual Interpretation of Enchi Fumiko’s short
story, "Kokuu no Akamboo")...... p.
. 2
33
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The Infant in the Void
She stood in front of the mirror, combing up her hair,
still damp from the bathroom steam, when the movements in her
breast started. Shio pressed all the way down on her left
breast with her palm and felt the stirrings of a small bird,
flapping its wings unsteadily. At about the same time, an
oppressive pressure radiated from the underside of her arms,
across her whole chest and suffocated her. This small bird
continued to flap its wings vigorously from deep within her
bosom, which by now was as hard as metal or rock. Each time
the bird tried to escape, Shio’s breathing would halt. Shio
rubbed her chest instinctively and then collapsed to the
floor, still holding the comb in her right hand.
: "Sensei, what's wrong?" asked Akeo, as she entered the
I
I room, tying a narrow sash behind her. Akeo was shocked to see
t
f Shio— sprawled on the tatami mat, her eyes expressing agony,
and her mouth resembling that of a fish, with rapid breathing
issuing from her protruded lips. But Akeo, with
i
j characteristic deftness finished tying up her sash and called
out the hallway for the maid.
"Mrs. Anazawa, cane here quick."
Akeo kneeled down and grasped the hand that Shio was
using to rub her chest.
"Sensei, be strong1 We're calling the doctor right now"
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she said, speaking directly into Shio's ears. She searched
for a pulse while she held on to Shio's moving wrist. While
Akeo measured her pulse, Shio gasped at intervals, and dug
her thumbnail into Akeo's hand. Thrusting the whole weight
of her body onto the back of that moist, warm hand, Shio fell
deeper and deeper into sane dark abyss.
Seeing the doctor out, Akeo slipped through the narrow
central hallway and stepped out of the foyer first.
"Will she be all right now?" she asked the doctor.
"She should be fine. It's angina."
"I thought so."
"We'll need to follow up with a more detailed
examination, but even then, there's still so much we won’t
know. She should get plenty of rest. Dancing is out,
though," the elderly doctor said, looking up and down at the
lesson schedule and dance posters hanging in the foyer.
Akeo's large, double-lidded eyes, set under thin eyebrows,
did not blink as she asked, "Doctor ... can you keep quiet
about her heart condition? If others find out about this,
it'll make things difficult for us."
The doctor replied, "Of course, no, I won't say
anything," and slipping into his shoes, muttered to himself,
"As if I had anything to gain if I did."
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3
Akeo quickly tucked a square envelope into the doctor's
pocket as he stood up.
"I'll send someone out in a bit for the medicine, but
please, don't say anything to him either."
"Yes, yes," the doctor replied, nodding his head up and
down magnamiously.
Akeo turned around to head back, only to find Tome
Anazawa standing right there, in front of the entrance to the
narrow hallway. Her amber complexion and sunken cheeks gave
her the appearance of a wild fox. "It's angina, isn't it?
My mother-in-law died from that, so I can tell."
"They're really not sure yet, so please, Mrs. Anazawa,
keep quiet about this, all right? If word gets out that it's
a heart attack, it'll interfere with our lessons. I just
finished telling the doctor to keep quiet about it too."
"Did you give him something?" inquired Tome, curling her
fingers into the shape of a coin. "That doctor's a greedy
one, you know."
Akeo nodded, wondering at the same time whether she
ought to be paying off Tome too, to keep her quiet.
"She's settled down, and she's resting now. Her
breathing seems to be stable, as well."
"It must have come from overwork."
"Yes, I think you're right. All that work for the last
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performance— it must have been too much. Plus, there was
that incident this morning.*
"Yes, with Akemitsu ..."
"That had something to do with it," said Tone quietly.
Early that morning, as Shio was preparing to leave for
dance instruction at the S Studio, she had had an argument
with her son, Akemitsu. Such disagreements were not uncommon
whenever Akemitsu was hone, but in this morning's uproar,
Akemitsu had missed hitting his mother with a teapot, and
the sliding panel doors were left strewn with wet tea leaves
from the smashed teapot.
Akeo softly opened the sliding door to the room where
Shio slept. She saw that Tome had already cleaned the place
up: the Kamakura-pattem vanity and dining table had been
moved aside. In the muted light coming from the undraped
side of the lantern, the only thing that was illuminated was
the design on the satin of Shio's feather quilt . In this
dark room, Shio was lying on her back with her eyes closed.
She appeared completely different now, nice and calm, and the
anguished expression had left her face. The bridge of her
nose was now but a sliver, and each time that she breathed,
her small, perfectly shaped nostrils would open and close,
gently, like the petals of a flower. Akeo crept up to her
side and crouched over her, watching closely.
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5
"Akeo? What did the doctor say?" asked Shio, who, with
eyes still closed, sounded as though she were reciting
something.
"He said that the worst is over? that you have
palpitations of the heart, and that it comes from working too
much."
"You know, my chest felt as stiff as a board. And yet,
when you were rinsing me off in the bathroom earlier, I
didn't feel anything at all."
"Your fatigue from the other day must have gotten to
you."
"I still have to go to the studio tomorrow too."
"We'll postpone that."
"I wonder if that would be all right."
"It'll be fine. Don't worry. You need to rest for a
while. I'll call Natsuo from Shibuya, and she, Tomoo and I
will take care of the lessons between the three of us
somehow."
"Tell them it's not that serious, will you?"
Shio pursed her lips, then said abruptly, "I thought I
was going to die."
"Don't say that."
"Akemitsu hasn't cone heme?"
"No."
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"I wonder where he went. Still, I'm glad he wasn't
here."
"That's true. If he'd been here, it might have been
even more ... When he comes hone, I'll send him to his room,
so he won't come here and disturb you."
"Yes, that would be best. He always gets angry whenever
I'm sick."
Shio's eyes moved plaintively. She no longer had the
proud bearing of a celebrity; she had come down to being
just an ordinary mother.
"He's lonely."
"No, he isn't. Well, even if he is, he can't go on
getting mad like that. You know, I was unconscious before,
wasn't I? When I came back to normal, I was thinking to
myself that Akemitsu wasn't here, and I felt so relieved.
Isn't that strange?"
Shio twisted her lips into a smile.
"Sensei, you'd better not talk now. You should be able
to sleep well tonight."
"Yes. Oh, and you'll take care of Akemitsu, won't you?
Make sure he doesn't bother me."
Then Shio closed her eyes again and took on the proper
expression of one asleep.
"The exhaustion finally got to her, so she went right to
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bed," Akeo explained cheerfully to the students who came for
their lessons the next day. With the help of Natsuo, the
accomplished teacher from Shibuya, and the apprentice Tomoo,
the three of them quickly completed lessons for about thirty
students.
To the mothers of these students, who offered bulky
condolence gifts and asked to pay the teacher "just a short
visit", Akeo would respond by whispering, "Really, she hates
for anyone to see her without makeup. She's forever
imagining that she's 30, you know." Having offered up a
likely excuse, she would only permit them to deliver their
gifts of fruit and boxes of snacks to the guest room where
Shio was resting.
Throughout the lessons, the phone rang incessantly, and
Sasaki, the manager, came by to tend to the post-performance
accounting statement and the proper acknowledgment of gifts.
Meanwhile, Akeo worked at a dizzying pace, moving about in a
kimono that was hemmed up to her shins for practical reasons.
Moving about quickly, with the trim body of a dancer, she
managed the household cheerfully.
On such occasions when his mother was resting, Akemitsu
would become irritable and find fault with the entire
household. Akeo, therefore, would take precautions and send
Akemitsu out of the house with some spending money.
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This year, Akemitsu had turned twenty. Although he
disliked school and had barely managed to graduate from
middle school, his mother would constantly remind him that if
he worked diligently at dancing while he was still young, he
could eventually take over the dance studio. All of her
advice fell on deaf ears, however, for Akemitsu disliked
following established paths and would respond contemptuously,
"Japanese dance is too old-fashioned." His mother, who
disapproved of his carefree spending habits, would often
chastise him, saying, "If you keep loafing around, you'll
live to regret it someday, you know." Akemitsu, however,
would only retort, "Regret it? You must be joking," and
invariably, a mother-and-son quarrel would stem from such
disagreements. In the end, Shio, who was the more self-
conscious of the two when it came to worrying about what
others might think, would lose the argument, while Akemitsu
would be emboldened even further to continue his tyrannical
existence as the only male in the household. Shio speculated
that perhaps Akemitsu had inherited his disposition from his
uncle on his deceased father's side, who had suffered from
depression and spent twenty years in an sanitorium. In matters
of the opposite sex, Akemitsu, who had grown up in the
company of women, had grown quite used to seeing them, and so
far no troubles had arisen on that score. One thing he did
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9
develop a penchant for, though, was gambling, and he would
bet his money on cycling races, pro wrestling matches, and
the like. Shio worried herself sick whenever she thought of
her son spending time with hoodlums in their leather jackets
and their garish aloha shirts.
Even on the night that Shio had the attack, it was
around midnight when Akemitsu arrived in a taxi. When Akeo
came out to the foyer, Akemitsu asked, "Where's Mom?" in the
tone of a spoiled child, even as his breath reeked of
alcohol.
"Akemitsu, your mother had a heart attack from overwork.
If you make too much of a commotion now, she'll die, you
know." Akeo had exaggerated his mother's condition somewhat,
hoping that it would knock some sense into him, but Akemitsu
simply stared balefully with his deep, dark eyes staring out
from his pallid face still showing traces of peach fuzz.
Responding only with a "Hmmph," he tore his scarf from his
slender neck, then went tramping up the stairs and slammed
his bedroom door shut.
That spring, the house had been enlarged to add a new
stage for the studio. It was built in the manner typical of
Noh theaters, with large vessels positioned underneath each
of the foundation posts, so that every time the dancers
stepped down on the stage, a marvelous sound would
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10
reverberate from the floor. At that moment, Shio was
listening to the steady, bracing flow of the dancers'
footsteps while the record of the kiyomoto song*- "Plum
Spring" played. When she had tired of listening, she turned
her body toward the garden and thought about the money that
had been borrowed for the construction of that stage.
It was the manager, Sasaki, who had talked them into
constructing the stage. He said that a decent stage was a
must, even if you had to stretch a little beyond your means.
Otherwise, the studio might be compared unfavorably with
other studios, and such unpopularity might even be reflected
in lost ticket sales. He convinced them that one could never
lose money on a building, barring a disaster like fire.
Persuaded by such arguments, they decided to build a new
stage and construction on a new building began.
As was predicted, the actual cost of construction turned
out to be twice the estimated cost, and the considerable
interest payments due every month further added to their
ever-increasing debt. Shio thought back to her attack of the
other day and tried to imagine what might have happened to
the household if she had died. She shuddered when her
thoughts turned to her frail, aging mother and to Akemitsu,
who seemed like a monster whose true nature, even though he
was her own offspring, she could not comprehend.
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11
In her youth, Shio had once been bedridden for a year
with pneumonia, and more recently, four or five years ago,
while talcing a bath, she had placed her hand on her abdomen
and felt something hard underneath it. Worrying that it
might be cancer, but not being able to bring herself to tell
anyone about it, she tormented herself for several months.
Fortunately, it turned out to be a pancreatic disorder, and
with the use of medicine, the tumor went away. At the time,
x-rays revealed a stomach ulcer. The doctors advised her to
have regular checkups, lest the ulcer should go unchecked and
develop into cancer, but Shio did not return for her
checkup, citing her busy schedule as an excuse. Still, to
Shio, who had already lost a father and brother to cancer,
the possibility of a malignant cancer was very real? thus,
whenever she lost her appetite or developed stomach pain, she
would remark out loud to Sasaki and Akeo, "I think I must
have stomach cancer. My family has a history of cancer."
She made such remarks mean-spiritedly, as if to cause
discomfort to them both.
She was not afraid of dying as much as she was afraid of
the long arduous path of suffering that she would have to
face on the way to death. She wondered how the foundations
of this household would stand up if she were to stop working.
She also wondered how Akemitsu, so used to frittering his
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12
days away with Shio's income as his "money tree", would
become hard pressed and start taking his frustrations out on
her as she lay sick. Her thoughts turned to her own mother,
bedridden with cerebral hemorrhage for these three years, who
was staying with her eldest son in the country, where he made
a meager living supporting a small business. How would her
mother suffer if Shio's living allowance to her were to stop?
Would her mother end up dying, like some shriveled up old
bug? She had only to think of all this to shudder at the
darkness and oppression of the world, disorderly and hideous,
lying on the underside of her glittering image as a
celebrity. But now she was further dismayed to find that
this heart attack had removed that long arduous path of
suffering.
About a week after the attack, Shio went to visit her
physician, Dr.S, at the hospital, accompanied only by Akeo.
After examining Shio's x-rays, blood pressure and EKG tests,
Dr. S said that her blood pressure was near normal. He added
that, although you could not tell from her physical
appearance, the EKG tests showed a possibility of myocardial
infarction. Since medication and injections were ineffectual
with her type of condition, he said that the only
precautionary measure was to avoid overeating and overwork.
Shio asked the doctor, "I suppose dancing is out?"
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13
"Well, that's up to you, but if you value your life, you
ought to consider making adjustments to your life style. I
hear you've been directing some dance programs on television
these days. And I heard your name was listed under the
choreography credits for a movie my daughter went to see the
other day. And now I hear you're giving ten days of lessons,
after which you're leaving for Sendai? Even a man with such
ailing health wouldn't survive. Remember, you've already had
a history of health problems."
"I don't really want to live that long ..."
"You don’t believe that," Dr. S said with a look of
admonishment.
"If Sensei ends up in a hospital, the dance studio will
be ruined!" said Akeo. The blank look in her eyes under
their thin brows added years to her youthful face. But
during a brief moment when Shio left the room, she looked
straight at the doctor and asked, "Would another attack be
dangerous?"
"Well, it's hard to say, but if she continues to have
these attacks, it would be serious. She'd be lucky to last
two or three years. ”
"That serious!" exclaimed Akeo, with a look of incre
dulity. "I thought you said her blood pressure wasn't high!"
"No, it's not, strangely enough. Nevertheless, I've
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14
treated patients with similar symptoms. When their heart
problems first started, their blood pressure wasn't any great
concern, but toward the end, their heartbeat did falter.
Died two years later, I think ..."
"And yet," said Akeo, "from outward appearances she
could pass for a healthy person." Having said this, Akeo
dropped her head dejectedly.
"That," said the doctor, "is the problem."
Although Dr. S characteristically said nothing openly to
Shio, his admonition to modify her working habits seemed
tantamount, even to Shio, to an admission that her illness
could snatch her life away at any moment. Shio, who had been
beset by an endless and enormous dread, seeing in her dreams
; a long hell of sickness and financial woe, now saw before her
? very eyes a sacred fire which would suddenly consume the
I
f whole path of her suffering.
I
How could he tell her to go on living without dancing?
Now, at this late stage of her life? She couldn't possibly
j
« do that, Shio said to herself as she measured her own pulse.
| Images of a painter who had lost his vision and a violinist
who had lost the use of a hand materialized before her. For
those artists, it was different; they had lost their ability
to draw or play an instrument. But she was perfectly able to
dance, and yet she was to stop dancing to prolong her life.
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15
The doctor was saying that she did not have to stop
working completely but rather to focus on the more important
aspects of her work and minimize distractions.
If Shio were in her thirties and had made the claim that
the art of dancing was her lifer she might have been able to
follow the doctor's advice, even at the risk of sacrificing
her livelihood. But now, at her present age, her
relationship with dance was imbued with the raw odor of human
sweat. Underlying her conviction that she 'could not live
unless she could dance' were her son, her mother and her
students, all of whose lives were inescapably intertwined
with her own life, like the twisting, constricting body of a
serpent. In the past, she might have been able to draw a
veil of artificial sentimentality over such encumbrances and
submerge her true feelings in it, but the Shio of today had
developed a tenacity of nerves to cope with this human life
of filth and sweat, which no amount of lyrical feeling could
cover over. It was an age when art and commerce were tossed
into a fiendish crucible, to simmer and blend together.
At the TV studio, Shio watched her own dancers'
movements, as the harsh studio light exposed the roots of
their shaven eyebrows and the stage camera absorbed these
fleeting images. Shio felt a certain sense of discomfort
about these images, which did not match up with her ideal of
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16
a live stage making a connection with the audience. The
machinery, far from capturing the direct image that the naked
eye might see, would instead move about on its own, playing
the role of a spirit medium, compressing the reed, world of
time and space. Such was the relationship between an
individual' s work and his profession, for try as one might,
one could never escape this most powerful machine of Time and
Space. To escape it would mean being isolated from the
world— in short, to die. Dr. S said that she should
reorganize her work schedule, but he had no idea of the cruel
pace of her world, in which her livelihood was attached in
assembly-line precision, like the strings of a marionette,
to a machine mechanism."
A crow was cawing, a voice that had opened up the grey
rain clouds above. Before long it would be winter. General
Winter, the great foe of all heart patients, was on the
march. As Shio stared vacantly at the soot-covered evergreen
leaves, she wondered whether she would be able to witness the
spring buds the coming year.
At that moment, the sliding door opened quietly, and
Tome Anazawa stepped in.
"Oh, you're awake now?"
"I got tired of sleeping. I'm thinking of going to the
studio tomorrow."
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17
"But you shouldn't be exerting yourself," Tome said as
she quietly set a glass dish with a slice of melon in front
of Shio. "S Broadcasting sent you this with their
condolences. Would you care for some?"
"Yes, I would," said Shio, scooping out a wedge of the
juicy flesh from the melon, which was a ripe shade of yellow
and green.
"You know, Sensei, about that matter ... I hate to bring
it up, but ..."
"Oh, that. Yes, well I've been thinking about it
myself."
"If you're thinking about getting a policy, the sooner
you get one, the better. If you get it before the year ends,
that would really help us out."
"Yes, but if they find out about my illness ..."
"They won't," Tome replied, in a voice that was soft,
yet firm; to Shio's ears, her words resonated with a sense of
finality, as if she had stamped an official document.
Tome was discussing life insurance. When Akeo returned
from visiting Dr. S at the hospital, she made a casual
inquiry to Tome about the procedures for buying life
insurance, and Tome, whose husband was in the insurance
business, went home that night to ask her husband. Tome
subsequently discussed the details that she had learned from
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18
her husband with Akeo. The conversation now centered on the
maximum amount of insurance a healthy person, some 50 years
of age, could carry to insure herself for twenty years or
more. The two of them, taking care not to mention Shio by
name, plotted together, and as time wore on, Sasaki the
manager, joined than. The three of than concluded that Shio
could, at this time, carry a fairly substantial amount of
life insurance. They reasoned that Shio would agree to their
plan as long as she could designate Akemitsu and the studio
as the beneficiaries. The advantages were that the three of
them were the only ones who knew of Shio's heart attack and
that they could negotiate a deal with an insurance doctor to
ensure that no reference was made to it, but the most
difficult task of all lay in telling Shio the heart and soul
of the scheme. She might, after all, lose faith in them for
broaching the subject with her at all. "But you know," said
Tome, "there are plenty of doctors like that. We know a
company doctor ourselves, and I'm sure if we approach him
privately, there won't be any problems." Tome went on to
describe an elderly meat shop owner in her neighborhood who
had carried a life insurance policy on his tuberculosis-
stricken young mistress. When the mistress passed away, the
owner used the life insurance benefits to expand and renovate
his meat shop.
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1 9
Tome concluded, "Sense! could rest assured, too, if she
knew that her son would be well taken care of. As for me,
all I ask is an agent's commission, and I won't breathe a bit
of this to a soul."
Then Akeo said matter-of-factly, "I don't care about
what happens to me, but I do care about her school; she's
worked so hard to build it up, I don't want it to fall into
a shambles. I figure if Akemitsu had possession of the dance
studio, he could at least make a living— any fool could."
Akeo, whose career military father had been hanged for
killing an American prisoner, had alway had a strong
constitution since the days of her youth. At times, this
inner strength was disquieting to Shio, but she came to
depend on it nonetheless.
When she heard about the matter from Akeo, she did not
feel the discomfort that she might have felt if someone else
had mentioned it. To Shio, Akeo's devotion to the dance
studio was understandable, since she, too, had endured the
hard times after the weir, without ever leaving Shio's side.
Shio believed that whatever become of her, Akeo could carry
on the operations of the studio, keep it going into the next
generation, and do right by Akemitsu too.
As for the matter of deceiving the insurance company by
hiding her heart condition— well, if it turned out that she
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did not have complications after all, then all would be well
and good; if, on the other hand, problems arose, then this
would be the best way to protect herself.
Tome jested to her in a low voice, "They say that your
illness starts to improve the moment you start carrying
insurance." Then she laughed out loud and continued,
"Sensei, come on— you've got to keep going for a few more
decades. Akeo keeps telling me that she just wants for you
to be able to keep working without worrying about the future.
It's really unusual to find someone so devoted like her these
days."
"She's been with me ever since she was eighteen years
j .
' old."
| "I hear she's the daughter of a major general; no wonder
I she's got such a strong will. She's certainly worth having
| around."
"Maybe too strong-willed," said Shio with a piercing
glance.
Shio felt an unaccountable disgust in the fact that
i
| Akeo and Tome were planning for her eventual death. It
i
seemed to her that she had fallen into their trap by taking
out the life insurance. As she sat across from Tome, she
felt the urge to slap her fox-like cheeks with her bare
hands, but when she thought of Akemitsu's unsteady eyes and
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2 1
tender, deathly white skin, all at once the anger that had
been welling up inside her subsided like a balloon that had
suddenly been punctured.
Upon making the first payment, Shio wondered whether she
should show Akemitsu the life insurance certificate that she
now carried. She thought that while Akeo, Tome and Sasaki,
who were not even family, knew all along about the policy,
Akemitsu's ignorance might create sane hardship for him in
the event of an emergency. Nevertheless, she feared that
if Akemitsu knew about it, it portended a lifetime of
misfortune for her.
Finally, Shio made up her mind to go to the Notary
Office on her own and had three copies of her will made up.
She would give Akeo one copy, and she would have the Notary
Office safeguard the other two copies for Akemitsu and her
brother. She planned for Akeo to serve as manager of the
Imafuji Dancing School and for Akemitsu to take over as the
director of the school.
Akeo was to divide the income from the dancing school
between her and Akemitsu, and any remaining debts were to be
paid using the insurance monies. The remainder of the estate
was then to be divided evenly between Akemitsu and her aging
mother in Shizuoka.
The notary public noticed Shio's youthful face, brightly
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touched up with makeup, as well as her emerald ring, which
gave off a lustrous green sparkle from the dimpled knuckle of
her dainty fingers. He was now repeating a summarized
version of what Shio had just told him, so that he could
verify the details before finalizing them on paper. This
statement, which Shio had been rehearsing, and which the
notary public now repeated for her benefit in a low,
unaffected voice, was one that concealed a number of details:
Akemitsu's abnormal personality, her older brother's poverty,
and Akeo's ties to the dancing school. Shio's statement,
confined to a single sheet of paper, was baffling to read,
like a novel replete with (missions.
"What you're saying, in other words," said the notary,
"is that you want to leave your inheritance to your son
Akemitsu and this elderly woman in the country, right? But
you're also afraid that if you inform them now, that you
might lose your valuable estate, so you would prefer that the
parties not be told until after you pass away."
"Yes, yes, that's exactly right." While Shio nodded
repeatedly, she appeared quite disturbed. Once outside the
notary office, she felt as though a gaping hole had been
tunneled inside her.
Across the bridge on which she was walking, she saw a
row of buildings on the river bank with the names of security
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2 3
dealers painted in large letters. The water was high and
moved along with a soft, shimmering quality. The sun, veiled
by white clouds, floated over the river's surface like a huge
jellyfish bouncing between the waves. Shio watched the sun on
the water as she walked, and it followed her footsteps all
the way to the end of the bridge. The white sun resembled a
faltering heart, in the middle of the rush and noise of
traffic, with cars, trucks and trains traveling by in a
continuous stream, Shio stood there for awhile, as if deaf.
In that moment there was a void. "Ohl" Shio fairly shrieked,
surprised to find herself all alone in the midst of a
metropolis.
Panicked, she jumped into a taxi. Lately, she had
developed a habit of placing her left hand over her right
wrist, to check her pulse. She did this now, as she directed
the cab driver toward the S TV studio.
At the studio, a young student of Shio's, a woman
wearing the costume of Asazuma^, awed.ted her arrival. Next
to the young woman stood the girl's well-dressed mother, and
Tomoo, Shio's leading pupil. The preparations for rehearsal
were now complete. The lights reflecting off the young
ladies' bodies were blinding in their brightness, and it
appeared as if their bodies were covered with reflective
mirrors. Shio talked briefly with the technical staff about
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2 4
the dancers' positions and lighting, and then the record was
played. The studio was broiling from the heat projected by
the spotlights, and perspiration dripped from the dancers'
faces and necks. Shio stared at the dancers1 images on the
monitor screen. The clumsy movements of the dance, under the
scrutiny of both human eyes and the lens of the camera, had
become separated from the stunning colors adorning the young
bodies, and they were now wandering about, as black and white
images on the screen, in lonely disarray.
"Sensei, don't you think Yumiko's face looks plainer
than usual?" asked Yumiko's mother, her voice betraying
concern. Yumiko was the only daughter of the president of a
porcelain company; of all of her pupils, Yumiko was the one
who would purchase more than a fair share of the performance
tickets.
"Oh, no," replied Shio. "She's beautiful. From now on,
Japanese dance will appear on TV a lot more, and Yumiko, with
her modern looks, will be perfect."
Shio tried making up an excuse to assuage this mother's
worries, but lately, she had begun to lose patience with this
dancer's poor sense of movement.
After the rehearsal, Shio parted with a few words of
advice. She had planned to leave the rest of the session up
to Tomoo, but, in the lounge as she was fixing the makeup on
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2 5
her perspiring face, Tomoo entered.
"Sensei, there's something I would like to talk to you
about."
Tomoo, who had practiced ballet, had a torso and legs
that were so slim they looked like they had been molded into
their present shape. Without a trace of makeup on her small
face, she bowed unexpectedly in a way that made her seem much
younger than her twenty years.
"We have about thirty more minutes left in the program,
and Yumiko is still resting with her mother ..."
"What is it?" asked Shio. "Is something the matter?"
. "Yes, but it shouldn't take but a minute of your time."
} The way the young girl held her hands together, and
i
| tilted her head to one side seemed like the movements of a
j young girl, but Shio had a sense of premonition.
\ "Actually, it's about Akemitsu."
r
V
"What about him?"
i
"He comes into my room every night."
I
"Oh, my goodness."
i
: "I didn't really care for him that much, but ... I
i
couldn't resist him, and ... now I'm pregnant."
"Don't talk about such things here," Shio replied,
trying her best to sound composed. "Anyway, let's talk about
this at my house tonight," she said, as she closed her
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2 6
compact and put it back in her handbag.
"I can't talk about it at home, because Akeo and Ms.
Anazawa are keeping a close watch over me. They're trying to
get me to have an abortion, without your finding out about
it. Akeo said she would put up the money for an abortion,
but I don't want one."
"Do you like Akemitsu?"
"Well, it's not that I like him ..." "But," she
continued, "I believe that if we got married, we could find
happiness together."
"Happiness ... So you think you can find happiness
without loving him."
"Love ... strange, Akeo said the exact same thing.
Akemitsu— I don’t think he loves me. He’s just attracted to
me physically; that’s the only reason he comes to me. I just
accept the fact that he behaves that way because he’s a man.”
"This is horrible. Akemitsu can't possibly marry now."
"Yes, he can. I told him that I would marry him if I
could follow in your footsteps and take over the school."
"What did Akemitsu say?"
"He said that he would let me. He said that Akeo had
not one ounce of femininity about her, and that he couldn't
allow someone like that to take over your position."
"That's not up to you two to decide. Anyway, I'll be
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27
going home now. Oh, and you know about the practice that we
have scheduled for next months' Spring Performance, don't
you."
"All right then, Sensei. I'll come to your room after
Akeo falls asleep tonight. I'll bring Akemitsu with me."
"Will Akemitsu come with you?"
"He will," she said confidently. "Oh, and by the way,
Sensei. I hear that you had a heart attack some time ago."
"Who did you hear that from? Akemitsu?"
Tomoo, smiled, revealing a dimple.
"Then I guess you're expecting me to die in the near
future, and that's why you're talking to me this way, like a
wolf out of sheep's clothing."
! •
| "Sensei, you shouldn't trust Akeo. She's trying to take
| away your fame and your studio. You must be aware of that
v
* yourself, since you've been venting your anger at her at the
j dance studio lately, in no uncertain teems."
"What are you talking about— Akeo is not that type of
* person." As Shio spoke, she realized that her words lacked
I
I conviction. In truth, Shio's lectures to Akeo as she took
i
i
over the teaching at the studio had become more and more
harsh in recent days. A certain amount of criticism directed
from one artist to another was to be expected, of course, in
light of the fact that Akeo was to carry on the name of the
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28
dancing school. Lately, however, the criticism was becoming
so excessive that even her pupils were taken aback.
Only two or three days ago, Akeo had danced with a young
accomplished partner, playing the part of Tadanobu3, to the
"Yoshinoyama"4 piece, and Shio made her redo the scene
repeatedly, maintaining that Akeo's laughter was not well
done. Finally, after numerous attempts, Shio threw down the
shamisen, breaking the neck in two. To the casual observer,
Akeo's dancing seemed perfect and in imitation of Shio's
style. But lately, Shio seemed to resent the fact that
Akeo's dancing bore a resemblance to her own style. The more
Akeo put herself into her dancing, the more Shio felt that
her own life was shrinking. But after Shio heard that
Tomoo was carrying Akemitsu's baby, she couldn't help but
think that there were those who were counting the days she
had left, and so she resolved in her mind to get the better
i of these people."
Once inside the car, Shio felt her anger, shock, and
confusion subside, and she wondered why this was so. If what
Tomoo had said was true, Akemitsu's baby was growing inside
Tomoo. Though she knew that Akemitsu was incapable of
meeting even his own needs, let alone a baby's, the fact of
the matter was, Akemitsu was going to be a father. She did
not dismiss Akeo's suggestion for Tomoo to have an abortion
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as purely selfish; no, she realized that Akeo may have
suggested it merely to lighten, the load of an already-
burdened Shio.
As she contemplated this last possibility, Shio had the
extraordinary feeling that this small life unlocked some
mystery— that, inside it, there was both happiness and
sadness, filled with a soft elasticity that transcended good
and evil, in a world constricted by noisy machines. Shio
gasped in amazement when she realized that she was reaching
out to that small life, little by little.
The car moved through the city on an unseasonably warm
j and foggy winter evening. When it stopped at a bustling
! intersection, Shio suddenly saw an image in the sky before
[ her. In between the neon advertising kiosk and the top of
| the train passing by on the tracks, she saw something: the
figures of a young man, a woman, and a child, reflected at a
certain angle. They were sitting, then standing up and
| walking around a table. It took Shio a few moments to
f realize that the large second-story window of the comer
i
} restaurant was reflecting, in the evening mist, the interior
4
of the establishment onto the windshield of the car. A crowd
of people, suspended in a void, wore costumes of red, blue,
yellow, and various other colors, and they moved about like a
bouquet of colors, dissipating and then taking shape. In
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30
this picture, there was a woman holding a baby, wrapped in a
white blanket. The mother was walking to and from the table,
rocking this baby, who appeared to be crying, in an effort to
comfort it. Shio held her breath as she stared at the white
blanket. Then, just as she turned to look at the actual
restaurant window, the signal changed. The car turned at the
intersection, and in that instant, the infant in the void
disappeared from Shio's sight.
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3 1
End Notes
1 Kiyomoto is a type of traditional song which serves as
the narrative music for the dance of Kabuki. (Kojima,
p. 172)
2 Asazuma is the name of a female character in a story
dance.
3 Tadanobu is the name of a male character in
"Yoshinoyama."
4 Yoshinoyama is the name of a classical dance which has
its setting in the Yoshinoyama region of Japan.
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32
Bibliographical References
Fumiko, Enchi. "Kokuu no Akamboo." Tokyo: Bungakukai, 1956.
Kojima, Setsuko and G. Crane. A Dictionary of Japanese
Culture. Tokyo: Japan Timessr 1991.
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3 3
The Inf suit in the Void: A Spiritual Journey
Enchi Fumiko 1905-1986) was one of the
outstanding and pioneering female novelists of Japan's modem
era. She won the Joryu Bungaku Kai prize in 1954 for Himoiii
Tsukihi t Years of Hunger), and the prestigious Noma Prize for
her masterpiece, Onnazaka (The Waiting Years. 1971). She has
been praised for her "precise use of language" (Lewell, p.
73) and her imaginative, dramatic prose— all of which combine
into a very powerful style of writing, for which Enchi is
j renowned. Her penetrating, graphic, and sometimes disturbing
« psychological portraits reveal a darker side of humanity— the
| sufferings and workings of the inner minds of Japanese
J
women— with a realism that was unprecedented for that time.
1 This depiction of a more complete, realistic portrayal of
i
1 Japanese women is a distinguishing characteristic of her
I
I stories, and one which won her critical acclaim, positioning
i
her in a "very special place among the women writers of
Japan, who tend to be cloying and sentimental." (Enchi, F.
"Enchantress", p. 116).
Perhaps most of all, though, Enchi is remembered for one
recurrent theme: women who suffer and search for escape and
self-fulfillment, to cope with an oppressive society. To
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Enchi, who had a strong sense of social consciousness, the
suffering that Japanese women experienced in a male-dominated
society that suppressed their individual freedom, was a
reality that she must have had difficulty accepting. Enchi
was clearly uncomfortable with this issue of basic inequity
in Japanese society, for many of her stories express a
sympathy for the plight of women who suffer from an unjust
society, and who seek ways of escaping this suffering. In
her attempts to reconcile the suffering that these women
experienced, Enchi sought ways to provide them with an
escape. Generally, these women seek to escape from society
through self-absorbtion, and they often preoccupy themselves
with a world of fantasy or work. Shio, the protagonist in
"Kokuu no Akamboo" ("The Infant in the Void", 1997) for
example, turns away from a tyrannical son who torments her,
and instead devotes herself to her work as a dancing
instructor. Chikako in "Yoo" ("Enchantress", 1956) too,
finds solace from an unhappy marriage in her translation
work, and eventually finds escape in a world of fantasy.
But while escape through work, fantasy or eroticism is
an avenue sought by many of Enchi's protagonists, Enchi could
not have been satisfied with such temporary resolutions, for
in her later years, her protagonists seek out more permanent
resolutions to their suffering, as well as answers to the
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meaning of human existence beyond this physical world. For
this reason, Enchi's later fiction deals increasingly with
the world of ghosts and spirituality. And while the
increasing prominence of such elements as ghosts and spirits
creates an eery, supernatural quality, and might seem to
compromise the realism of her stories, Enchi weaves in these
elements surprisingly well. In fact, it is a testament to
Enchi's skill as a storyteller, that so successful is she in
blending realistic elements with surrealistic ones, that she
leaves the reader with a disturbing sense that the
distinction between reality and imagination has become
blurred.
As a reflection of her developing interests in the
metaphysical world, we see that in many of her later stories,
Enchi's protagonists attain their ultimate salvation through
religion or spirituality. In Qnnamen (Masks. 1983), the
protagonist Mieko avenges herself by resorting to powers of
spirituality as a shaman. In "Kokuu no Akamboo" as well, Shio
appears to achieve retributive justice at the end, when she
finally departs from the physical world. We can see
evidence, then, of a shifting focus in Enchi's themes in
later stories: from stories about the oppressive life of
Japanese women, to stories about death, old age and
spirituality.
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"Kokuu no Akamboo", published in 1956, is one such short
story that diverges from some of the earlier, familiar Enchi
themes: women who suffer from their dependence on their
husbands; and women who turn to eroticism as an escape from
their unhappy lives. Shio in "Kokuu no Akamboo" for example,
appears to be financially independent, unlike Tomoo in
Onnazaka. who is completely dependent on her husband for her
livelihood. And unlike Chikako in "Yoo" who finds escape in
erotic fantasies, Shio finds escape in her work and
eventually, in her spiritual development.
"Kokuu no Akamboo" is a short story with a moralistic
flavor reminiscent of Buddhist spiritual teachings. It
teaches us about humans and their shared destiny: the
various stages of suffering and awakening, self-reflection
and growth, enlightenment, and reincarnation. In the end,
the story reveals to us how spirituality governs and
determines the destiny of the everyday life of common people.
Thus, Shio, Akemitsu, Akeo, and the others in the story are
all governed by one common law of spiritual truth: that
suffering and torment befall those who search for happiness
and meaning in life on earth; that salvation comes to those
who seek spiritual truth, transcend their earthly
attachments, and seek enlightenment; and that retributive
justice prevails for all. It is like a parable, then, which
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provides spiritual guidance, but in a modern-day context.
For many of us, the meaning of life and our human
existence is not a topic that we often spend time
considering. More often, it takes a crisis in our own lives
before we begin to think of our lives within the broader
context of human existence. This crisis in our lives, then,
becomes a turning point— a point at which we re-examine and
assess our lives, and perhaps change our direction in life,
in order to seek spiritual fulfillment. The spiritual
development which we go through in our lives is a theme which
is most effectively exploited by Enchi in her story, "Kokuu
no Akamboo."
"Kokuu no Akamboo" begins with the initial phases of
spiritual development of Shio, a middle-aged career mother
and proprietor of a dancing school. Shio's life is
constantly plagued with worry and torment, as she suffers the
hardships of raising a rebellious son on her own, along with
the responsibilities of running a dancing school. Her
suffering, it seems, is due in large part to the behavior and
actions of her son, Akemitsu, who vents his uncontrollable
temper on his mother. On the very morning of Shio's heart
attack, he has an argument with his mother in which he reacts
violently and throws a teapot at her.
In the midst of such an unhappy life, Shio looks for
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38
escape in her work, and in time, she finds in dancing a
meaning for her existence. Soon, Shio is working at a
relentless pace, and she becomes so caught up in her own
private world and her own needs that she becomes oblivious to
all that is around her.
When Shio suffers a heart attack and nearly loses her
life, however, a period of spiritual crisis begins for her.
It is during this period of crisis, when she is recuperating
from her heart attack, and when she is no longer busy with
the details of living and working, that she is finally forced
to contemplate life, death, and the meaning of human
existence. During this time of rest and recuperation, she
becomes acutely aware of her own mortality, for as she lies
in her bed, she is constantly "beset by an endless and
enormous dread, seeing in her dreams a long hell of sickness
and financial woe." (translation, p. 14) It is a disturbing
revelation to Shio that death can come with little warning.
She had previously expected it to be a "long arduous path of
suffering" but realizes, after her first heart attack, that
it can come suddenly, (translation, p. 12) She relates her
shock to Akeo— "You know, my chest felt as stiff as a board.
And yet, when you were rinsing me off in the bathroom
earlier, I didn't feel anything at all." (translation, p. 5)
The surprise of the heart attack causes her great discomfort,
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39
for she is suddenly and pointedly reminded of the precarious
nature of life. As she rests in her bed and listens to the
music of the Plum Song, "she wondered whether she would be
able to witness the spring buds the coming year."
(translation, p. 16).
The heart attack, then, is the catalyst that leads to
Shio's spiritual crisis and eventually transforms her way of
thinking. It is what triggers her spiritual awakening, for
she becomes aware of one of the important truths of life: its
impermanent nature. Shio realizes that though she may worry
and plan about her remaining years, they are few in number,
and she realizes that life will continue without her. She
realizes that while we all feel that we are indispensable in
this world, we are in fact here for a very insignificant
period of time. And inasmuch as we tie ourselves to the
earthly world and its trappings, our importance in this world
is tied to that very short existence in our physical form.
Once Shio realizes that life is only transitory, she
becomes "further dismayed to find that this heart attack had
removed that long arduous path of suffering", and this
realization that the end of life can come so quickly without
warning makes it all the more precious to her. (translation,
p. 12) Shio thus begins to take life much more seriously
than ever before.
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40
Thus begins Shio's spiritual awakening and a period of
spiritual introspection, in which she contemplates her own
existence. After Shio realizes the impermanence of life, she
reflects on the goals that she has spent all of her life
pursuing— fame, recognition, and financial stability. She
realizes that although she has in fact attained them, these
earthly goals that she has pursued thus far are empty and
temporary.
Shio has become a famous dancer who runs a successful
dancing school and has appeared on television and in the
cinema. She has spent the better part of her career pursuing
fame and has carefully cultivated the image of a famous
dancer that appears on dance posters everywhere. She has
f
£
\ trained herself to establish the habits of her ideal image of
f a dancer, so that the habits have become ingrained in her,
\
\ even in her sleep. Even in her critically ill condition, she
is careful that she takes on the "proper expression of one
: asleep." (translation, p. 6) She also pursues her vanity and
| is careful to project a certain physical image of herself by
|
( concealing her age with a face "brightly touched up with
makeup." (translation, p. 21-22)
Shio seems to have found in her work both relief and
escape from her problems, as well as a sense of individual
identity and self-worth that is unavailable to her otherwise.
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Yet, when she is resting from her heart attack and is no
longer working, she finds that she "no longer had the proud
bearing of a celebrity; she had come down to being just an
ordinary mother." (translation, p. 6) In fact, she finds that
fame is very fickle, for once she drops out of sight,
someone is ready to take her place. Her protege and second-
in-command, Akeo, for instance, easily slips into her
position and manages the dancing school during Shio's
illness. Shio also finds that her fame can be usurped by
others like Tomoo, a student in her dancing school, who
entertains thoughts of stealing her fame and her position.
Shio also realizes that, although she has spent her career
pursuing wealth, it too is an elusive, impermanent goal, for
there is never enough to secure her financial stability as
long as her son Akemitsu continues "frittering his days away
with Shio's income as his 'money tree.'" (translation, p. 11-
12)
In the end, she finds that such artificial goals as
power, wealth, and fame are empty and elusive at best;
furthermore, in pursuing these goals one creates bonds to
these earthly attachments and this only furthers ego-
centeredness and detachment from humanity. Shio has pursued
these very goals through her work, and this singular focus on
her work has resulted in her detachment from others,
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especially her own son, Akemitsu, who behaves like a spoiled
child and vents his frustrations on her.
Thus, with the occurrence of her heart attack, her
lifelong goals of dancing, fame and fortune now seem
meaningless, and Shio begins to see the world and her own
life from a different perspective. What she sees, however, is
a world which is becoming more and more disengaged from
humanity. Advances in science make the relationship between
humans and technology adversarial. She resents this
inhumane, mechanized world "constricted by noisy machines",
(translation, p. 29) It seems to Shio that humans too, are
unfortunately becoming more and more inhumane, like their
surroundings. The people around her somehow do not reach out
to others in a humane way; rather they are merely acting out
on their own impulses, with little consideration of others as
human beings. Tomoo, for example, confesses to Shio that she
is pregnant by Akemitsu, and says matter-of-factly, "Well,
it's not that I like him [Akemitsu] ... But ... I believe
that if we got married, we could find happiness together."
(translation, p. 26) Tomoo explains further that she doesn't
believe Akemitsu loves her. She feels that "he's just
attracted to me physically; that's the only reason he comes
to me." (translation, p. 26) Shio thus clearly sees the
greed in Tomoo, who has premised to marry Akemitsu, whom she
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4 3
does not: love, if she can carry on the dancing school.
Shio is further dismayed when she perceives the evil
motives of people closest to her. For example, Shio feels a
sense of "unaccountable disgust in the fact that Akeo and
Tome were planning for her eventual death." (translation, p.
20) She senses that Tome has some greedy, ulterior motive for
pressuring her to sign up for life insurance. She sees the
deceitful plan that Akeo, Tomoo and the manager Sasaki have
hatched to keep the insurance company from knowing of her
heart condition. Even her own son, Akemitsu, "seemed like a
monster whose true nature, even though he was her own
offspring, she could not comprehend." (translation, p. 10)
All around her, Shio sees evil— anger, jealousy, deceit,
and greed. Shio realizes that we have lost sight of what is
important in life, chasing after illusory, impermanent goals,
and in the process, we have lost something very valuable: our
own humanity. Shio finds that the only goal to live for is to
devote her attention to helping those around her, so they may
survive even after she has passed away. We find evidence,
then, of a gradual development in Shio's cheiracter, from one
who acts upon selfish motives to someone who is motivated by
altruism. Soon after the heart attack, for example, Shio is
preoccupied with thoughts of how to plan for the future and
well-being of those close to her. To this end, she visits a
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notary public and arranges to draw up a will that provides
for the financial security of her mother, her son Akemitsu
and Akeo.
Although Shio is guided by this change in her spiritual
nature, she finds that she still experiences an inner
conflict from time to time, as she learns to suppress her
instinctive behavior for a more noble cause. When Tome and
Akeo approach Shio about life insurance, for example, she is
perturbed by their overzealous efforts to insure her life,
and yet she suppresses her pride because she knows she must
think not of herself, but of Akemitsu, who would benefit from
such a life insurance policy. In the end, she sets aside her
pride, and with it, her attachment to herself; instead she
focuses herself on helping others, and by doing so she begins
to mature in her spiritual development. She thus associates
her own goals with those of others, and the distinction
between her needs and the needs of others becomes blurred. In
this way, she begins to see the interconnectedness of all
living things. No longer can Shio claim that dancing is her
life and follow her own path in life, seeking fame and
fortune. She now acknowledges that underling her ideals
that she "could not live unless she could dance were her son,
her mother and her students, all of whose lives were
inescapably intertwined with her own life, like the twisting.
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45
constricting body of a serpent." (translation, p. 15)
Yet, even as Shio matures spiritually, she also finds
that this spiritual growth is a difficult process. She finds
that she cannot put her beliefs fully into practice, for she
often finds herself prone to engaging in the same evil that
she witnesses around her. When she goes to the notary public
to draw up her will, for example, she concocts a story that
conceals details of her life— her son's abnormal personality,
and Akeo's ties to the dancing school. She also readily
participates in the deception of the insurance company, by
hiding details of her heart attack from them. Further, she
tells Akeo to keep the truth about her heart attack from her
students, saying, "Tell them it's not that serious, will
you?" (translation, p. 5) Although Shio laments the fact that
dancing as an art has deteriorated to the point that profit-
making has become the overriding goal, she also realizes that
she herself is guilty of becoming obsessed with the profit-
making side. When the parent of one of her dancers asks Shio
a question about her daughter, the first thought that comes
to Shio's mind is not the girl's dancing ability, but the
fact that this student, more them anyone in the school, "was
the one who would purchase more them a fair share of the
performemce tickets." (translation, p. 24) She also is aware
that underlying her severe criticism of Akeo's perfect
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dancing are the jealous instincts and animosity of someone
who feels that she has been replaced. Of late, "Shio seemed
to resent the fact that Akeo's dancing bore a resemblance to
her own style. The more Akeo put herself into her dancing,
the more Shio felt that her own life was shrinking."
(translation, p. 28) Such acts of deception, greed and
jealousy are proof that Shio still retains bonds to this
earthly world. Unfortunately, it is these bonds to such
self-centered emotions that pose an obstacle to her spiritual
development.
This struggle that Shio experiences between good and
. evil is evidence of her continued spiritual conflict. When
] she is at the notary public's office, for example, she
i -
j !
| concocts a story about her family and then, once outside the
! notary public’s office, "felt as though a gaping hole had
i
*
■ . been tunneled inside her." (translation, p. 22) And though
?
she becomes incensed when she thinks about how Akeo and Tome
have connived to have her sign up for insurance, thoughts of
v
| her son Akemitsu become merged with her anger, and "all at
I once the anger that had been welling up inside her subsided
i
like a balloon that had suddenly been punctured."
(translation, p. 21)
She looks for the source of this evil, so that she can
find a way to escape it. To Shio, it seems that one’s evil
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spirit originates from some common heritage with one' s
ancestors. In Akemitsu's case, she feels that the answer to
the evil spirit in him is in his past. Akemitsu's uncle
suffered from a troubled mind. Shio speculates that "perhaps
Akemitsu had inherited his disposition from his uncle on his
deceased father's side, who had suffered from depression and
spent twenty years in a sanitorium." (translation, p. 8) In
Akeo's case too, Shio feels that she inherited her strong
will from her father, who was a major general. Thus, in
Shio's mind, a person's destiny is determined in part by
others in previous generations; the source of evil within
humans is inborn, and an instinctual part of our physical
being, like "the raw odor of human sweat." (translation, p.
• 15) Like it or not, Shio finds that she has to develop the
t
' "tenacity of nerves to cope with this human life of filth and
t
i
| sweat." (translation, p. 15) We see that Shio is thus
i
• destined to suffer in this world. She is resigned to the
: fact that her destiny is to suffer her ill health, for these
?
j things have their origins in her past. When she suffers from
!
! a stomach ache, she bemoans the fact that in the past her
family suffered from them.
In due time, Shio's disillusionment with this world
leads her to search beyond this world for answers, and she
turns instead to spiritualism. Shio begins a metaphysical
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trans formation, in which she begins to leave this material
world for short periods at a time. Not long after her heart
attack, she relates to Akeo, "You know, I was unconscious
before, wasn't I? When I came back to normal, I was
thinking to myself that Akemitsu wasn't here, and I felt so
relieved.” (translation, p. 6) Then when she is talking to
Dr. S she sees spirits from the world beyond. "Images of a
painter who had lost his vision and of a violinist who had
lost the use of a hand materialized before her."
(translation, p. 14) Similarily, when Shio leaves the notary
office she walks all the way to an unfamiliar destination, as
if in a trance, and becomes lost in a world of her own. "In
I the middle of the rush and noise of traffic, with cars,
|
| trucks and trains traveling by in a continuous stream, Shio
! stood there for awhile, as if deaf." (translation, p. 23)
I
| Shio temporarily departs this world of "time and space" and
I "in that moment there was a void." (translation, p. 23) She
}
t temporarily loses her sense of the real world, but is quickly
| transported back to the earthly, physical world again, when
| she is hit by something and regains her senses, exclaiming
"Oh!" (translation, p. 23)
A pattern emerges then, in which Shio continually
departs and visits the world of spirits, yet always comes
back to the earthly world— the world of "time and space" —
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where she must continue to mature in her spiritual
development by grappling in a world of good and evil. But
although Shio fades in and out of the world of mortals, she
never fully escapes; instead she maintains her place in a
void just between the real world and the spirit world, for to
completely "escape it [the world of "time and space"] would
mean being isolated from the world— in short, to die."
(translation, p. 16)
As Shio's visits to the spiritual world become more
frequent, she also finds her physical presence fading away
from the physical world. When she drives away in the taxi
after leaving the studio, she realizes that "lately, she had
developed a habit of placing her left hand over her right
wrist, to check her pulse" as if to reassure herself that she
was still in possession of her life, (translation, p. 23)
And as she looks up at the horizon from the bridge, she sees
the sun, which resembles her own "faltering heart."
(translation, p. 23) This gradual deterioration of her
physical body is a sign that she is going through the last
phases of her physical life on earth.
This gradual transformation of her body and soul within
is portended by a bird which embodies Shio's spirit. Through
the bird's development we can trace Shio's spiritual
development, from the early stages of her spiritual
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awakening, to the later stage of her spiritual transforma
tion. This small bird appears from the beginning of the
story, when it struggles to escape Shio's body, which has
just suffered a heart attack. Much later in the story,
however, the bird escapes and is cawing, in a "voice that had
opened up the grey rain clouds above." (translation, p. 16)
It is as though the bird is Shio's spiritual core, which has
finally managed to escape to the heavens above. It is a sign
that Shio is ready to begin her journey to the spiritual
world.
At the end of the story, Shio's disillusionment with
this world reaches a peak when she fears that Akemitsu has
| betrayed her confidence and has been plotting with a student
*
| that he has gotten pregnant. When the student, Tomoo, tells
Shio out of spite that she knows about the closely guarded
secret of her heart attack, Shio is devastated, and she
t leaves the studio, thinking that "there were those who were
counting the days she had left, and so she resolved in her
mind to get the better of these people." (translation, p. 28)
But though Shio is disappointed in humanity, she does
not respond in kind, for she has at this point matured in her
spiritual development. Her outlook on life has changed, and
she looks at others from both sides now, rather than just the
negative side of human beings. Having felt the presence of
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the other world, she no longer suspects only ill will of
others; she also can feel the warmth and love behind other
people's actions. For example, when she hears Tomoo say that
Akeo wants her to have an abortion, Shio "did not dismiss
Akeo's suggestion for Tomoo to have an abortion as purely
selfish; no, she realized that Akeo might have suggested it
merely to lighten the load of an already-burdened Shio."
(translation, p. 28-29)
Thus, as Shio leaves the S Studio in a taxi, she appears
to be close to her spiritual enlightenment. Although she
becomes distressed and angered when she sees deceit and greed
in Tomoo, she finds that she is able to distance herself from
these feelings, for "once inside the car, Shio felt her
anger, shock, and confusion subside, and she wondered why
f
! this was so." (translation, p. 28) It seems that she has
matured in her spiritual develoment to the point where she
now resides temporarily in a void between the earthly world
and the spiritual world. We know she is still part of the
i
- earthly, artificial world of the senses, for she sees the
t
i "neon advertising kiosk and the top of the train passing by
on the tracks.” (translation, p. 29) At the same time, she
is on the verge of being part of the spiritual world, for she
discovers a place "filled with a soft elasticity that
transcended good and evil, in a world constricted by noisy
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52
machines." (translation, p. 29)
At the end of the story, Shio leaves the studio and
rides in a car, contemplating her life on earth for the last
time. As Shio hovers between the earthly world and the
spiritual world, she thinks about the current reality of this
physical world, and realizes that "the fact of the matter
was, Akemitsu was going to be a father" and soon, Akemitsu
and Tomoo's baby would become a part of her life,
(translation, p. 28) Then when she thinks about Akeo's plans
to encourage Tomoo to have an abortion, she realizes that the
baby's life could be cut short at any time, and she stretches
her arms out to the baby. Shio "gasped in amazement when she
realized that she was reaching out to that small life, little
by little," for when she reaches out to the infant, she
experiences her spiritual enlightenment, (translation, p. 29)
Shio realizes then that her faith in the world of the
Hereafter is complete. For her, the baby who exists in the
Spiritual Void is real, and her reaching out to it is
evidence of her belief in it. Her faith has thus become
whole, and through this act she attains enlightenment.
Shio already begeui the gradual process of spiritual
transformation even after her heart attack, for she begem to
have fleeting glimpses of the spiritual world, although she
always returned to the world of mortality. But now "on em
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53
unseasonably warm and foggy winter evening" she rides through
the city from the studio to her hone, and she undergoes a
spiritual transformation, by embarking on her final ascent to
another world, the spiritual world, (translation, p. 29)
Shio is now in her late years, and on this particular
evening, the car comes to carry her away from the world of
mortals and turns the corner, taking her into the world of
spirits.
But Shio's life cycle does not end here; it
continues, for at the end of the story, Shio has a vision
of what lies ahead for her future. in her vision she sees
an image floating in the sky before her. In between the
neon sign, which flashes its advertisements, and the tops
I of the cars, which are maneuvering by on the road, she
| sees something: a vision of an infant, which is now a
■ reality living within Tomoo's womb, appears ready to
descend upon the mortal world, to be a part of Akemitsu
and Tomoo's life. In this fined vision, Shio feels
i
I that "this small life unlocked some mystery."
t
j (translation, p. 29)
The mystery that Shio refers to is the meaning of human
existence, and Shio understands that the answer has to do
with the cyclical nature of karma. She realizes that it is
no mere coincidence that she is departing the earthly world
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the same time the baby appears. She and the baby are trading
places, as it were: Shio is fading out of the living world
and into the spiritual world, and in her place, the baby is
fading out of the netherworld and entering into the world of
the living.
Shio's life and the life of this baby are thus linked,
in a successive chain of birth and rebirth, life and death,
so that the karmic chain of causality can be realized. Just
as the twins Harume and Akio are bom at the expense of their
mother' s death in Qnnamen. Akemitsu' s baby is welcomed into
this life at the same time that Shio's life ends. In the
, same way that the bird in the story is associated with Shio’s
j life, this baby is thus linked with Shio's life. At the
I
| beginning of the story, the bird representing Shio's spirit
| struggles to escape from Shio's body. Trying to escape, it
*
| would "flap its wings vigorously from deep within her bosom,
t
5 which by now, was as hard as metal or rock. Each time the
bird tried to escape, Shio's breathing would halt."
i
| (translation, p. 1) When the bird finally manages to escape
r Shio's body, its freedom portends the end of Shio's life on
I
earth, for its cawing, like a voice from the heavens, was a
"voice that had opened up the grey rain clouds above."
(translation, p. 16)
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55
The sequence of events and consequences, then, are like
the interlocking pieces of a puzzle, like the events in
onnamen. in which the story "unfolds with karmic
determination" and "every move seems designed to be part of a
mystic entity that is larger than any individual life."
(Bargen, p. 164) Through this interconnectedness of lives,
the distinctions between humans and even between humans and
animals become blurred, for an individual may be reborn
either as human or animal. The people in "Kokuu no Akamboo”,
for example, cure often compared to animals. Tome and Tomoo
both appear like a cunning fox. Similarily, Shio also thinks
that her aging mother may end up becoming a "shriveled-up old
I
f bug." (translation, p. 12) In this way, the life of one
\
I
i individual becomes necessarily tangled with the lives of
I
| others, and the lives of animals become one with the lives of
c
i humans. This power of karma to link people's destinies with
the lives of other beings through birth and rebirth is the
common thread of human existence, for people cure bom in a
i
I
| second or third or fourth life, depending on the kind of
\ karma they have helped to create for themselves and others.
With enlightenment, therefore, comes the realization that all
lives are interdependent, and divisions between the self and
others become irrelevant. Karma, for Shio, and for the
characters in most of Enchi's stories, is the force that
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56
balances good and evil, and guarantees retributive justice.
Karma is what determines that a vengeful Mieko in Onnamen
will experience further suffering (Barges); karma is what
Shio feels is responsible for Akemitsu ’ s violent disposition;
it is also what prevents Joosuke in "Nise no en Shuui" (Bonds
for Two lifetimes— Gleanings. 1983) from attaining nirvana.
We see, therefore, that at the end of the story, at the
moment the car turns the corner and takes Shio on her
spiritual ascent, Shio is merely fulfilling her karma. "The
infant in the void disappeared from Shio's sight" and in that
moment, Shio has left the world of the senses, for she can no
longer see the baby. (translation, p. 30) The newborn image
thus appears to be Shio's reincarnation. Once the baby
enters into this world, Shio's physical being must fade, for
the two cannot co-exist. The cycle of life and rebirth
continues. It is as if this were the end of one chapter and
the beginning of another. Just as Shio is in the twilight of
her own life on earth, the infant signals the beginning of a
new life for Akemitsu and Tomoo.
At the end of this story, then, it appears that for Shio
spirituality provides the only answer to a life of suffering.
Although Shio begem her seeurch for escape from suffering by
pursuing such goals as fame emd fortune, she eventually finds
that she cannot escape from suffering. Though she has
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immersed herself in work, in the final assessment, she finds
that her search for escape is in vain, for as long as she
lives she cannot escape suffering. Even when she achieves
fame and fortune, for example, these goals are only
temporary, for Akemitsu is always there to carelessly spend
her fortune away, and there are people like Tomoo, who have
designs on her fame and fortune. Shio therefore can never
escape from the evil on this earth, nor can she escape the
realities of time and space on this earth, for to escape from
time "would mean being isolated from the world— in short, to
die." (translation, p. 16) Thus for Shio, the final years
are years of spiritual awakening, introspection and growth,
5 in which she finds that the course of life traveled thus far
: i has been meaningless. She looks ultimately to religion and
I
j spirituality and in her final stage of spiritual development
I *
< 4
f she finds that the ultimate answer to her quest to end
suffering lies in a place that is "filled with a soft
elasticity that transcended good and evil.” (translation, p.
t
29) The spiritual world is the only lasting means of escape
from an oppressive life and the only hope for justice in the
world beyond. The end of the story holds out a glimmer of
hope that there will be a balancing of karmic justice in
"Kokuu no Akamboo". Just as Mieko in Onnamen suffers
consequences for her vengeance, karmic justice dictates that
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Akemitsu should receive his just punishment from the web of
hostility and deceit that he created himself while Shio was
alive. If Shio is reborn into the world again and her spirit
resides in Akemitsu’s baby, the roles will be reversed.
Akemitsu will then know the hardships that Shio experienced,
and the cycle of evil karma that he took part in creating
while Shio was alive will no doubt revisit him.
Thus, with "Kokuu no Akamboo", the inclusion of
spirituality seems to provide the natural sequel to Enchi's
earlier stories about women' s suffering from a male-dominated
society. As in her other stories, the protagonist Shio
searches for ways to escape from suffering, but in "Kokuu no
1 Akamboo", Shio goes one step further. In this story, Shio
f goes beyond finding an escape in work, love, or
t
t .
• relationships, and she instead finds spiritual fulfillment.
For although such works as Himo-iii Tsukihi and "Yoo" hint at
spirituality, they merely suggest the existence of a
spiritual world through the inclusion of dreamlike qualities,
i "Kokuu no Akamboo", on the other hand, clearly implies the
j
t existence of a spiritual world, with its more concrete and
I
I
frequent references to such a world. Toward the end of the
story, when Shio is about to depart the physical world, she
sees an image floating plainly in the sky before her. Shio
notices that in this reflection of the spiritual world "a
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59
crowd of people, suspended in a void, wore costumes of red,
blue, yellow, and various other colors, and they moved about
like a bouquet of colors, dissipating and then taking shape,
(translation, p. 29)
This spirituality, which is very much in evidence in
"Kokuu no Akamboo," was of increasing interest to Enchi at
this time in her life, and in later stories, this theme would
become more prominent and even more fully developed. In
later stories, the presence of ghosts and apparitions, along
with suggestions of such Buddhist and spiritual concepts as
karma, the transience of life, and spiritual enlightenment,
reflect Enchi's maturing interests in matters of the
! supernatural and spirituality. Particularly in her later
* years from the mid-1950's to 1960's, works such as Onnazaka.
| Qnnamen. and "Nise no En Shuui" depict elements of
i spirituality and the supernatural in a more prominent and
fully developed manner. The title of her most famous work,
Onnazaka,1 for example, is suggestive of the Buddhist concept
[ of climbing the smaller of two slopes of a hill to reach
f
salvation, we see a clearly marked spiritual development in
Onnazaka' s protagonist, who comes to identify with the Lady
Vaidehi^ of Buddhist scriptures, and calls out the name of
Amida^ to achieve Salvation. In the story Qnnamen too, the
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60
shamanistic power of women is acknowledged, with numerous
allusions made to the cycle of karmic retribution, which
occurs among the three main female characters of the story.
(Bargen, p. 167)
The gradual development of Enchi's spiritualism over the
years is evident from the contrast between the generalized
manner in which ghosts and spirits cure mentioned in "Kokuu no
Akamboo" and the much more specific and explicit references
to Buddhist figures and specific religious sects referred to
in later works like Qnnamen. For this reason, it seems that
Enchi was referring to stories like "Kokuu no Akamboo” and
Onna no Fuvu (A Women's Winter), when she wrote in Enchi
\ Fumiko Zenshuu:
t
i
| This book includes mainly my recent works. I
[ have been experiencing so many surprising
\ things from various points of view during the
I past half a year. I was almost stunned by the
| fact that my own spiritual self-renewal took
place every hour and moment and was caused
by outside influences. It seems to me that
this process somehow tends to lead me from
complexity to simplicity, and from imitation
to genuineness. ... Though my literature has
I not matured so as to fully express my
/ spiritual development I believe that the
shadow of my spiritual change is scattered
throughout the book, in an imperfect form.
This is the reason why I am attached to my
early works." (Rieger, p. 60)
Underlying this statement was Enchi's firm conviction
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that "an author's writings should continue to evolve, in
order to match the author's own maturing perspective of
life." (Enchi, trso makoto— nanaiuuvonen . p.151) As we
examine Enchi's works, we can see that they in fact reflect
the changing perspective of a maturing woman. While her
earlier works focused on the suffering of women in an unjust
society and on their attempts to cope with their unhappiness
through work, love, fantasy, or other escapes, her later
works in contrast focused on themes that would naturally
concern a woman of advancing age: loneliness, fear of death,
and spirituality.
Ench's literary development, then, closely paralleled,
even mirrored, her spiritual development, for Enchi wrote,
■ not merely to entertain, but to share her personal life
r
P .
\ experiences and convictions with her readers. And while many
i
' of Enchi's themes appeal to the masses of women who read her
stories, they are also themes that were important to her
personally and that reflect her philosophy in life.
Perhaps Enchi ’ s deep-seated need to write according to
t
her conviction was an important ingredient in her ability to
write with such stark realism. This realism of Enchi's,
along with her clarity and dramatic style of writing, and the
themes that are prevalent in her stories--suffering,
hardship, coping in an unjust society, escape through love or
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work— seem to be just the blend of ingredients that appealed
to Enchi’s audience of women readers, for she managed to
sustain a popularity for many years, in both critical and
popular acclaim. For this she must be given due credit, for
though her message is not simple or straightforward, and
though it is frequently immersed in mystical elements, she
nevertheless manages to captivate audiences with themes that
address the real-life concerns of women, in a voice that
consistently resonates with clarity, realism, and conviction.
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63
Endnotes
1. Onnazaka literally means "female slope" and refers to
the slope with the gentler incline, among two paths that
are pursued by Buddhists, to achieve salvation.
2. Lady Vaidehi is the figure referred to in teachings of
Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, who finally attains salvation
after suffering from her son's violent disposition.
3 Amida is the Buddha of the western Paradise in Jodo
(Pure Land) and Jodo Shinshu sects of Buddhism.
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64
Bibliographical References
Bar gen, Doris 6. "Twin Blossoms on a Single Branch: the
Cycle of Retribution in Onnamen." Monumenta Nipponica 46/2
(1991): 147-71.
Carpenter, Juliet Winters. "Enchi Fumiko: A Writer of Tales."
Japan Quarterly 37.3 (1990): 343-55.
Enchi, Fumiko. "A Bond for Two Lifetimes— Gleanings. ” (Nise
no En: Shuui). Trans. Phyllis Birnbaum. Rabbits. Crabs.
Etc. Ed. Phyllis Birnbaum. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1983.
Enchi, Fumiko. "Enchantress" (Yoo). Trans. John Bester.
Modern Japanese Short Stories. Tokyo: Japan Publications
Tradiing Co., 1960.
Enchi, Fumiko. Enchi Fumiko Zenshuu. Tokyo: Shinchosha,
1977-1978.
Enchi, Fumiko. Himo-iii Tsukihi. Tokyo: Chuokoronsha, 1954.
Enchi, Fumiko. Masks (Onnamen). Trans. Juliet Winters
Carpenter. New York: Knopf, 1983.
Enchi, Fumiko. Uso. Makoto— Nanaiuuvonen. Tokyo: Nihon
Keizai Shimbunsha, 1984.
Enchi, Fumiko. The Waiting Years (Onnazaka). Trans. John
Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971.
Gessel, Van C. "Echoes of Feminine Sensibility in
Literature." Japan Quarterly 35.4 (1988): 410-16.
Lewell, John. Modern Japanese Novelists: A Biographical
Dictionary. Kodansha America, Inc.: New York, 1993.
Lippit, Noriko Mizuta and Kyoko Iriye Selden. Japanese Women
Writers. New York, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991.
McClain, Yoko. "Eroticism and the Writings of Enchi Fumiko."
Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 15.1
(1980): 32-46.
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65
Mulhern, Chieko Irie, "Women Writers Past and Present: A
Comparison of Lady Murasaki and Enchi Fumiko." John
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Katsui, Irene A.
(author)
Core Title
"The Infant in the Void": A spiritual journey
School
Graduate School
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Biography,literature, Asian,OAI-PMH Harvest,women's studies
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
Zimmerman, Eve (
committee chair
), [illegible] (
committee member
), Hayden, George (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-17176
Unique identifier
UC11342174
Identifier
1387822.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-17176 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
1387822.pdf
Dmrecord
17176
Document Type
Thesis
Rights
Katsui, Irene A.
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
literature, Asian
women's studies