'Mama Trauma in The Tale of Genji -

Hikaru Genji as a Transvestite Mother'

「源氏物語におけるママ トラウマ」――

“男装の母”としての光源氏――

By Kenneth L. Richard

Summary of Main Points

The Tale of Genji, written in the year 1000 a.d. by a woman writer whom we now call Murasaki Shikibu, is known throughout the world. The original version of this work in the Japanese language of the Heian Period (795-1185 a.d.) has been read by generations of Japanese readers. In the twentieth century, Murasaki's original words were translated into the modern Japanese language by such famous writers as Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), Enchi Fumiko (1905-1986), Hashimoto Osamu (1948- ), Setouchi Jakucho (1922- ), and Tanabe Seiko (1928- ). Portions of The Tale of Genji have been re-written as drama. Radio and television versions of the famous story continue to be made in Japan. Several years ago, a major Tokyo television network made a version of the Genji story staring Mr. Higashiyama Noriyuki of the group of rock singers and performers once known as theShonentai (Boy Band). In addition to modern versions of the story in Japanese, translators such as the American Edward Seidensticker (1921- ) and the Englishman Arthur Waley (1889-1966) have published complete versions in the English language, in the 1960's and the 1920's respectively. A third version of the Genji story in English has now been completed by Royall Tyler in Australia and is now in print (October, 2001). For your information, The Tale of Genji also exists in French, Russian, and Chinese translations, among others.

Wherever The Tale of Genji is read, in whatever language, and by whomever, certain things can be noticed about the way the work is constructed that make it universally appealing. For example, the theme of regaining one's birthright (生まれながらに持っている権利を取り戻す), becoming a successful man （出生する男）, can be understood by anyone in the world. In ancient Greece, many stories told of an agon, a Greek word meaning 'journey' in which a man became a hero by going on a journey away from where he was born, a journey that contained much learning, and often included romantic adventure and marriage. The hero became a success when he returned to his birthplace to become, for example, a King. The Tale of Genji has a theme like the Greek agon in which a young boy must go through many experiences to become a success; he must leave the place of his birth (ie. Genji leaves his father's palace), he must proceed through many romantic adventures with women (ie. Genji has affairs with Fujitsubo,Utsusemi, Yugao, Oborozukiyo, Rokujo Miyasundokoro, Murasaki, Tsuetsumuhana, The Third Princess among others), he must go on a journey into exile (ie. Genji spends two years in Suma and Akashi on the coast of the Inland Sea), and he must return to his birthplace to take up the position in society he was meant, by birth, to achieve (ie. Genji returns to Kyoto, builds his own palace in Rokujo, and becomes a sort of pseudo-Emperor).

Success in regaining a birthright is the great theme of the first part of The Tale of Genji, chapters 1-33 of a total of 54. Hikaru Genji, or Prince Genji, or the Shining Prince, are some of the names by which the main character is known in these chapters. Not only does Genji achieve success, but through his efforts, almost everyone around him also achieves success. Through Genji does not follow in his father's footsteps to become an Emperor, he builds a great house, a palace, in which he acts like an Emperor. Everyone who lives at the Rokujo Palace (六条の院) is successful, everyone has his or her own set of buildings. The passing of the seasons flows as naturally as the pattern of life at Rokujo. Genji takes care of a lady who is called Akikonomu and makes her an Empress. She lives in Genji's Rokujo Palace in her own Autumn garden（秋の園）. Genji's daughter the Akashi Princess lives with Genji and his greatest friend Murasaki in their own garden which is best in Spring（春の園）. The Akashi Princess's mother lives in quarters designed to look best in Winter, in the Northwest quarter of the Rokujo Palace （冬の園）. Genji's adopted daughter Tamakazura and his son Yugiri live with another of Genji's ladies in a house in the Northeast meant to take advantage of the Summer season （夏の園）.

After Genji's 40th birthday, in the next set of chapters, 34-41 of a total of 54, the next generation become the main characters of the story. Characters with names such as Tamakazura, Yugiri, Kumoi no Kari, and Kashiwagi take over the main content of the story. In this second part of The Tale of Genji, success continues to be a major theme, but we also experience the beginnings of failure. （源氏の結婚生活、子供たちやその母親、また他の女性や男性との関係に起こってくるひび割れを取り上げる。） Not every person is able to gain the success Genji had experienced as a young man. Kashiwagi, for example, commits suicide after his illicit affair with Genji's new wife The Third Princess. A child is born to her, a boy Kaoru, who is not his biological son, but the result of Kashiwagi's affair with The Third Princess. All of the above characters are young and unsuccessful. We might say that in this second part, The Tale of Genji tells us about life as it really is instead of how it should be. Genji lives on but in a somewhat imperfect world that he can no longer control.

The final part of The Tale of Genji, chapters 42-54, begins to tell the story of what happens to the young people around Prince Genji after he dies, but soon switches its setting from Kyoto to a gloomy village called Uji to which Genji's son Kaoru and grandson Niou go, back and forth, coming and going on horseback, in pursuit of two young ladies whose names are Oigimi and Naka no kimi. All of the relationships that ensue in Uji between these characters of a third generation after Prince Genji are in their most successful state when they are just beginning. In other words, the best things in the lives of these characters have already happened before the story begins. The story we experience is one of disappointment, lack of ability to communicate, and loss of the will to live. The Tale of Genji in the first part is a success story（サクセス・ストーリー）. In the second part, it is a story of continuing success with a mixture of failure（ひび割れが起こる半出生物語）. And in the third and last part, The Tale of Genji must be termed a story of failure. （精神の盛衰談） I believe that these so-called Uji chapters are the best in the entire work. Many Japanese readers agree with me.

Exactly how The Tale of Genji goes about telling its story of success, modified success, and failure is extremely complex as well as fascinating. Let me give you some idea of what I mean by examining three aspects of monogatari style, how Murasaki Shikibu goes about writing.

First of all, I believe that Murasaki Shikibu did not mean to tell a story of actual people, nor is her writing autobiographical. （事実のない真実、非私的虚構） The characters in The Tale of Genji have no actual models, but are composite characters who are a little bit of someone the author may have known, and a little bit more of her own fantasy. Why did Murasaki Shikibu write this way? Well-- to write the truth, the actual facts of observation, is limiting. If one imagines beyond the truth and the facts, all becomes possible. I believe this impulse is what led Murasaki Shikibu to write in way she does. Because she chose this approach, Murasaki Shikibu may be called the first writer of novelistic fiction the world has ever known.

I also believe that The Tale of Genji, in addition to being fiction, that is, an approximation of the truth, bigger than life, not limited by actual experience, is also subversive. I might term Murasaki herself a terrorist. By subversive I mean the story is meant to overturn established norms in society.（社会秩序の裏面を映す。普通性をくつがえす。） The way in which Prince Genji actually achieves the success his birthright intended involves his transgression of accepted practice. He begins by having an affair with his own mother's replacement, a secret that must be kept throughout his life. He later has an affair with a lady meant to be in the service of another Emperor. These things were not allowed in Heian society. He takes a young girl into his care as his daughter, then makes the girl his wife without going through the proper social customs. Many other instances like these occur throughout The Tale of Genji. Even in the Heian period when this work was first read, we know that people found it sensational and went to great lengths to have a copy in their possession. Reading beyond what is normally possible is the great pleasure of fiction and the novel.

The second way in which Murasaki Shikibu writes in a way that keeps her readers' interest is through her use of irony. Simply put, irony means a condition caused by a recognition that behind what is being portrayed as the fact, or the truth, is another side which is equally valid, but is not expressed. （“アイロニー”とは文学の修辞技巧の一つであり、実際に表に出ている写実性とは違い隠れた意味を示すものです。） In other words, when irony is used in writing, we the readers become aware of truth beyond what the characters themselves know. We know that Fujitsubo gives birth to Genji's son who becomes the Emperor Reizei, but noone else in the story does, not even Reizei. Secrets, and this use of irony as a way of writing, help push the narrative to a successful conclusion. As a writer, Murasaki Shikibu never keeps the secret or the irony in place without revealing the truth sooner or later. Secrets become known, but always much longer after we the reader come to know about them. We the readers are asked to keep the secrets, and to enjoy them.

A third way of writing makes The Tale of Genji a supremely successful work of fiction when combined with the idea of a fictional world beyond reality, and with the idea of irony: it is the reversal of the gender role in mothering that Prince Genji assumes as his primary means of ensuring recapture of his birthright. （再び生得件を取り戻す最も効き目の有る方法は光源氏がいわゆる男装の母になる時に限る。この物語の虚構の世界には先天的な性別としての女性より、後天的に男性が育ての母となる方が成功する。）Prince Genji becomes a mother to Reizei when his mother Fujitsubo becomes a nun after the death of Genji's father and her husband the Emperor Kiritsubo. Genji helps this boy become Emperor and take his proper place in the world. In doing so, Genji ensures his own success. In the course of my lectures, I will give you a few illustrations of how Genji becomes a mother to Reizei. Irony and fictionality work together with Genji's mothering to make this story compelling.

Some years after a young lover dies in Genji's arms, her daughter by another man comes to live with Genji in his Rokujo Palace. Genji assumes the role of 'mother' to ensure the success of this lady's search to find her birthright. Her name is Tamakatsura. In my lectures, I will also take up the means by which Genji mothers Tamakatsura.

Several years after the above scenes with Tamakatsura are played out in the Rokujo Palace, Genji again assumes the role of 'mother' to Kaoru. His biological mother is The Third Princess but because of the embarrassing circumstances surrounding the birth of her child, she soon becomes a nun, entrusting the boy to Genji. In my lectures, I will give several examples of the Genji as Kaoru's 'mother.' Once again, a world bigger than reality lies behind Kaoru's birth. Irony is employed to protect Kaoru from knowing who his biological father is, and finally, Genji acts as 'mother' to give Kaoru a chance at a successful life. The process is cut short by Genji's death. Kaoru is destined not to achieve success, and this is the story of the last ten chapters of the novel.

Finally, the idea of Prince Genji as a transvestite mother, that is, a man who, while dressed as man, acts the role of a woman, is the main feminist aspect of the writing style in The Tale of Genji. Murasaki Shikibu designed a story that would appeal greatly to women because, in its fictional world, the main male character acts as would a woman. In reality, the world Murasaki Shikibu lived in was one in which a man's world (a patriarchy) （父性的社会） had already overthrown the last remnants of early court society in which children belonged entirely to their mother's side of the family, and were considered chattel of the feminine line (a matriarchy) （母性的社会）. Prince Genji is a transitional character who is not as brutal a man as Fujiwara Michinaga whom Murasaki Shikibu knew in her real world. Her young women readers must have been excited with such a gentle man who never forgot a woman he had known, while her male readers must have been chagrined and curious at what made a totally fictionalized man such as Prince Genji so popular with women. From our modern standpoint, Genji's masculinity is made acceptably softer by his feminine side as it is expressed in his role as mother. It can also be said that certain female characters such as Tamakatsura in The Tale of Genji exhibit an element of masculinity which increases their attractiveness by adding a touch of masculine spice.