MAMA TRAUMA IN 
THE TALE OF GENJI
 　
（The following is an excerpted version of my paper which appears in print in other forms. I include here the introduction, sections on male mothering not included in published versions, and the original version of the conclusion. Kenneth L. Richard
The great theme of The Tale of Genji is the success or failure to regain one's birthright. Chapters 1-33 (Kiritsubo,1 throughFuji no uraha, 33) are a success story in which a main male hero, Prince Genji, becomes an Emperor emeritus and thus regains his birthright as the son of an Emperor. Chapters 34-41 (Wakana I,34, through Maboroshi, 41 ) chronicle the breakdown of the success story of the previous chapters by addressing the potentiality of failure in Prince Genji's marriages, and in his relationships with his children, other women, and some other men. The final Chapters 44-54 ( Hashihime, 45 through Yume no ukihashi, 54) are a story of failure to live up to one's birthright. The style of writing practiced by the sole author of The Tale of Genji , Lady Murasaki Shikibu, is one of increasing degrees of irony, that is, from straight narration of events in chronological time, termed diachronic progression in Chapters 1-33, to more complex stages of narration termed synchronic progression in which the importance of events in time gives way to a world of thoughts and emotions known only in part by characters, narrators, and readers, and not necessarily to all those who live in the text. In Chapters 34-41, the reader begins to know more about the characters and their relationships than they do individually. The potentiality of failure as a theme is well-supported by a writing style in which characters and events are not always as they seem to be, that is, what happens is what only seems to be happening, and the real nature of characters and events lies beyond the actual time and space of the narrative. Finally, Murasaki's irony turns, in the last chapters, 44-54, chiefly to an examination of what goes on in characters' minds, far removed from the straight narration of the first sections of this long work. Often what is going on in the character's minds is narrated as musing, referred to as interior monologue. Though this sort of narration occurs with increasing frequency in the chapters relating to the first year of Genji's life at the Rokujo no in, it reaches its peak in the last ten chapters, particularly those related to Ukifune, her attempted suicide, and subsequent amnesia, so that narrative flow becomes available only to the reader's perception, not to other characters.I will attempt to point out, in this paper, that given the theme of success or failure, and the highly ironic writing style in The Tale of Genji , the image of the mother in this work is also ironic, that is, it is not what it seems to be; it transgresses the boundaries of what might have been the real or non-fictional world of Heian Japan from which the work issues. Above all else,The Tale of Genji is not a fact, but a fiction, and a fiction that defines its ideas of motherhood by increasing degrees of irony in which its biological mothers are not whom they seem to be, not whom they want to be. It is my view that motherhood in The Tale of Genji is perverted, that is, it has been turned around so that it does not reflect societal norms. Mothers transgress social boundaries by the very nature of their being mothers: the Kiritsubo Lady, Genji's mother, because she is not suited by virtue of her class to be successful as the mother of an Imperial son; the Empress Fujitsubo who replaces Genji's mother in his father the Emperor's affections and who, by producing a child with Genji, is condemned to a life of utter secrecy lived in the fear of her secret being found out; Yugao who dies an untimely death in Genji's arms by spirit possession and whose daughter Tamakazura, the issue of her brief affair with To no Chujo, is immediately removed to Kyushu;the Akashi lady whose daughter is taken from her by Prince Genji to be raised as a foster child by Murasaki no ue in order that the girl aspire to her rightful place in society and who, almost from the moment of giving birth, loses her natural rights as a mother; Aoi, Genji's primary wife, who dies immediately on giving birth to his son Yugiri, again by spirit possession;the Third Princess who gives birth to a boy, Kaoru, whom the world will have to accept as Genji's son, but who, in fact, is the product of her rape and abandonment by Kashiwagi. This list is not exhaustive. Being a biological mother in The Tale of Genji gives rise to the spectre of serious failure. The discussions below are not included in other published versions of this text: 3.Yugao, mother of Tamakazura4.Rokujo Miyasundokoro, mother of Akikonomu5.Aoi , mother of Yugiri6.Akashi Lady, mother of the Akashi Princess In the Genji narrative, a certain pattern has begun to emerge in how biological mothering begins, is brought to an end, is overturned or perverted until a new pattern of substitution emerges in which Prince Genji takes over the role once performed by the biological mother. First I propose a general schema for mothering. It assumes an antithetical position because it is a reversal of normal societal expectation and it results in the furtherance of irony:1. Genji or someone close to Genji becomes involved with a woman who becomes a mother. This woman is unknown, already promised to another man, unloved, or available with conditions.2. The woman becomes the mother of a child or children who must remain unknown, become orphaned, or who have little chance of success in the world as long as they remain in the care of their biological mother.3. Certain events such as death or the taking of orders take place which end the role and responsibilities of biological mother.4. A substitution occurs in which Genji takes over from the biological mother as surrogate.5. Male mothering takes the narrative to a success level beyond that which the biological mother had been able to attain despite the fact that societal rules had been overturned.
3 Yugao, Mother of To no Chujo's daughter Tamakazura The Yugao, Tamakazura, Genji narrative is perhaps the most fascinating in The Tale of Genji because it begins with evanescence and tragedy in a single chapter by the name of this lady, Yugao 4, yet in which the daughter Tamakazura, orphaned at the end of the chapter, grows, thrives, and flourishes throughout the remainder of the entire narrative, even after Genji's death. Tamakazura is the single longest surviving female in The Tale of Genji. She is also the mother of three sons and two daughters. We find them living together long after the death of her husband Higekuro in the chapter Takekawa,44. It is the last chapter in which she appears.The supremely crafted diachronic narrative writing of the Yugao, 4 chapter is so well-known that it will suffice at this point to recap the narrative in terms only of the perverted mothering schema I have proposed above:1. Genji's friend To no Chujo becomes intimate over a three year period with a lady known by the name of Yugao after the large summer-flowering white gourd-flowers of the same name that bloom in profusion on the decrepit wall of her simple house in the city. Yugao had been the daughter of a Middle Captain of the Palace Guards, now dead. Her mother is also deceased. Genji initiates a similar affair with Yugao without knowledge of her background. To no Chujo has broken off his affair some time before.2. Yugao gives birth to a daughter, later known as Tamakazura, by To no Chujo. The fact becomes known to Genji at the time of his affair. This lady remains unknown, becomes orphaned, and has little chance of success in the world until Genji takes over in his role as her male mother.3. Yugao's role as biological mother is terminated by her death by spirit possession. Genji is present. The child is sent away in the care of Yugao's wet-nurse and her husband Dazai no shoni to his posting in Kyushu. Tamakazura remains in their care for twelve years.Here the schema for the Yugao portion of the narrative is temporarily suspended as the Genji narrative proceeds diachronically with other matters. When Tamakazura is reintroduced into the narrative twelve years later in the chapter Tamakazura, 22, the perverted mothering schema re-starts itself at level four:4. A series of providential events bring Tamakazura back to Kyoto from Kyushu where she is, by chance, discovered by Ukon, her mother's former maid, now in Genji's service. Tamakazura is looking for her biological father To no Chujo and thinks she will succeed in society by having him recognize his paternity. Such is not to be the case. Genji has a plan to introduce her into his own house as his daughter. He proceeds. 5. Genji ensures Tamakazura's success by acting as her surrogate mother, potential lover, go-between in marriage, memento mori of her mother Yugao. Male mothering is the theme of the so-called Tamakazura chapters of The Tale of Genji, Tamakazura,22 through Makibashira,31. By the time Tamakazura finds her way back to Kyoto, Genji is now the Great Minister of State (Daijo daijin), the highest rank in the realm next to the Emperor himself, and he has completed construction of the enormous Rokujo no in Palace in the Sixth Ward where he resides in great splendor with his greatest friend Murasaki no ue. What is apparently lacking on this grandiose stage is a leading actress to be directed by its Master playwright Prince Genji in a new drama that will allow him to enjoy the sight of various young male suitors vying for her attention. Here is a portion of the interesting conversation that ensues between Genji and Ukon in which Genji's intent to act as a surrogate mother to Tamakazura becomes clear: "Now that you've told me she is here in our midst, I must bring her to this house. I am often reminded of that unfortunate incident years ago. The potential happiness of hearing of her whereabouts makes me feel much relieved about all the insecurity and despair she must have experienced in those years away from us. And what good what it do to have her father find out? Nothing but initial confusion and commotion; she will never fit in. Trying to begin a new life with her father would be contrary to what I have in mind. It will be easy for me, in my current loneliness, to make a little announcement that I have found a long lost child. Just think of the possibilities inherent in my being able to put all her potential lovers to the test.""It's as you say. There is no one who is in a position to give information to her father anyway. By taking her in, you will have lightened the burden of sin I have shouldered since her mother's untimely death.""So it's done then. I've never stopped being reminded of how short a time we were together, her mother and I. Who else is there in this house to stir feelings such as I once had for her? no one, of course, though there are many who, in the course of my long life, have been able to see how comparatively compassionate and loyal I can be. Unless I'm to make do with you, Ukon, as my permanent reminder of that dear lady. What misfortune that would be! So, there as she lives I'll see that she comes here and that my original feelings are not left unfulfilled."And so the tone of the Tamakazura narrative is set. Initially at least, she is to be treated as an adopted daughter, the identity of her biological mother and father left untouched. Genji's ploy is acceptable to Tamakazura's family and she moves into the Rokujo no in in the winter of its first year of operation. Genji begins to entertain suitors for her hand in the summer of the next year.In the chapter Kocho,24, suitors begin to flit about as regularly as summer insects, among them Genji's brother Prince Hotaru, Kashiwagi the young son of To no Chujo, and Genji's son Yugiri whose warmth toward Tamakazura is almost fraternal. She avoids Kashiwagi, knowing that he is her brother. The way Genji critiques the value of her potential suitors Prince Hotaru, Higekuro, and Kashiwagi, and presses her to write letters to them, allows for the irony of Genji's real intention which is to transgress his societal obligation, entered into lightly and thus free from what would otherwise be an incest taboo, and make Tamakazura his lover. He has no intent to allow the younger men to court her. One begins to wish Genji were not so humanly fallible at this point because the narrative is so disagreeable, but the writing is powerful and best illustrates the perverted mothering schema I have suggested for the Yugao narrative. If he succeeds with Tamakazura, Genji will have put off the third level of the perversion in which death ended Yugao's biological motherhood. Genji will not assume the role of male-mother, but will come dangerously close to producing a schema in which a potentially acceptable event occurs: Genji becomes biological father to Tamakazura's child and it is not a secret. Everyone lives happily ever after. Genji will be allowed to return to his youth, to re-experience sex with an unknown, but without the tragedy of death. Genji seeks to circumvent the tragedy of his youth. As we shall see, this scenario is narrowly averted. Here is a portion of that narrative from Kocho, 24: Around the time of the change to summer clothing...Genji, realizing that the frequency of letters to Tamakazura had increased, became sufficiently impressed to take himself to her quarters to have a look at the same and to urge her to answer those that merited answering. She remained aloof and considered the idea importunate. Genji was visibly amused to see the collection of letters sent very early on by Prince Hyobu containing so many obvious signs of his impatience."He has always been on intimate terms with everyone in the family, but when it comes to letters like these, he tends to hold back. For him to now manage a display of obvious erotic intent is marvelous, laudable. Be sure to send a reply. I can think of no one better skilled in being a match for your poetic gifts. I think he's serious." Tamakazura remained sullen and unwilling to respond to what Genji considered a welcome advance.The letters from Higekuro were also taken into account for their seriousness and deliberation. In one, he had remarked that on the 'mountain of love' on which he found himself, even the Sage Confucius could be expected to take a fall, making reference to a popular conundrum. This was a nice touch. Genji compared all the other letters with these, finding one that was scented in an old-fashioned way and written on pale blue Chinese paper and folded into the thinnest, most particular of knots. "Who is it who sends his poems in this most carefully folded manner?" Genji remarks as he opens it. The hand is very practiced:Though I think of youHow can that be known to you?Gushing forthI am like water cascading over bouldersSo strongly the colours within are kept from viewThe style of writing was free of conventions and up-to-date. "What more could you want," Genji asks, but Tamakazura is too shocked to make a clear response.Genji calls Ukon to come in and then prattles on about what sort of message to answer and which to leave aside. When this is done, Genji admits that Kashiwagi is charming and worthy of notice, but essentially out of the running. Additionally, Genji notes that Tamakazura is not yet ready to carry her own weight in a household of extremely strong personalities. He thinks it best that the matter be left to another time. Genji then dismisses his brother Prince Hotaru as a bit of a philanderer, against whom it would be futile for Tamakazura to hope to use her wiles to calm him. Genji then proceeds to find a flaw in Higekuro's potential by noting that he is already married to a woman much too old for his age and he has tired of her, again a difficult call to make. Urging Tamakazura to leave such judgments about marriage to him, Genji remarks:"You must think of me as your mother, remember how it was it the past? I will never allow you to make a mistake in matters of the heart." These are Genji's exact words. The meaning is clear; Tamakazura will be successful only to the extent that she accepts Genji's new role as male mother. In fact, Tamakazura does not accept it, though she continues to walk a narrow and dangerous path between acceptance and the total failure of her hopes.The Kocho, 24 chapter draws to its conclusion with Genji attempting to add a new transgression to the schema of perverted male mothering he has just cemented. He attempts to have sexual relations with Tamakazura. First he takes her hand in his, feeling the smoothness and plumpness of her skin, and this thrill was what had made him reveal his true intentions. Tamakazura becomes immediately depressed. Knowing not what response to make but that she had to make one, she begins to tremble. Genji begs off:"What is it that makes me so disagreeable to you? Be sure that you keep this to yourself. No one must be given a chance to accuse us of anything. You must keep the secret as though nothing has happened."Later on that evening, Genji lets himself into Tamakazura's quarters, removes his clothing, and lies down beside her. He has been drawn by a sense of adventurous danger that he felt the first time he had slept with Yugao: "It felt as though he was in the same frame of mind he had been then, terribly and deeply felt." Tamakazura keeps her silence. No revenge is ever extracted.Throughout the remainder of the Tamakazura narrative, Genji, for the most part, controls the near disaster of reverting to a childhood fantasy of impossible sexual adventure and death, proceeding instead to seek a proper mate for Tamakazura. When the men are ruled out, going into service at the Palace becomes an alternative which Genji pursues in the chapter Miyuki, 29. Tamakazura also has her coming of age ceremony in this chapter and, more importantly, Genji sees fit to use this occasion to tell her biological father To no Chujo, now Minister of the Center (naidaijin) that Tamakazura is, in fact, his biological daughter. The thought of losing sight of Tamakazura's daily life, however, prompts him to use his political savvy to make a match with Higekuro. The Minister, her father, also feels this to be more appropriate than going into service at the Palace. Tamakazura marries Higekuro reluctantly, but later is unhappy enough to try to get into Palace service anyway. She succeeds, but is soon taken back by an angry Higekuro. As life slowly improves, Tamakazura comes to feel that Genji has done well by her once they have both overcome the problem of acceptance of the perverted mothering schema put into motion in her mother Yugao's lifetime. The pattern seems completed when Tamakazura gives birth to her first child, a boy, in the chapter Makibashira, 31. At this stage, events follow the mothering schema I have proposed at Level 5. How do other narrative streams fit the pattern? Here are summarized schemata as I see them for the next three relationships (appropriate chapters are indicated for each level of the schema):
4 Rokujo Miyasundokoro, Mother of Akikonomu 1. The Rokujo Lady is married to the Crown Prince in the Palace of the age before the outset of the narrative. She has given birth to a daughter, later known as Akikonomu, by this Prince, also before the outset of the narrative. Her husband, the former Crown Prince, is also dead before the narrative begins, that is, before Genji is born. Genji meets and has a sexual relationship with this lady, but in terms of the entire narrative, she is extra-textual, beyond the text, and thus possessed of special powers. ( No applicable chapters.) 2. The Rokujo Lady never conceives a child by Genji, but possesses the spirit unto death of Yugao, then Aoi, then Murasaki no ue. Her daughter Akikonomu is, in essence, an orphan taken up by Genji. (E-awase, 17)3. Akikonomu becomes the Vestal Virgin of Ise (Ise Saigu), hence terminating her biological relationship with her mother. The Rokujo lady journeys with her daughter to Ise, but serves upon her daughter as a recluse. (Sakaki, 10) 4. Genji see the political advantages of having a daughter old enough to become an Empress, and so he takes Akikonomu into his own house and grooms her to marry the Emperor Reizei whom, you will remember, is actually Genji's son. So, the perverted mothering schema begins before, after, and during Akikonomu's term as Empress when she lives in the Rokujo no in Palace under Genji's full care. (Otome, 21)5. Akikonomu achieves great success not because she produces an heir to the throne (she remains childless), but because through Genji's perverted male mothering, he has become an Emperor one step removed (jun Daijo tenno) and reclaimed his native birthright. Only in this manner could he have achieved this. (Fuji no uraha, 33, pgs. 445-46)
5Aoi, Mother of Yugiri/h21. Genji is married officially to Aoi, daughter of the Minister of the Left, in his childhood. Basically, Aoi is unloved. (Kiritsubo, 1)2. Aoi gives birth to Yugiri, Genji's son, but dies in childbirth. (Aoi, 9)3. Genji takes over the role of biological mother not immediately on Aoi's death because her parents perform surrogate responsibilities for the remainder of Yugiri's minority. (Aoi,9)4. Genji takes over as male mother on Omiya's death when Yugiri's career, education, marriage, and future prospect for social position become a matter of importance. (Fuji no uraha, 33)5. Yugiri's success in the narrative resounds solely to the importance of Genji as a central male mother figure. In this schema, unlike others I have mentioned, no social transgressions have occurred which set the schema into motion. As such, the Aoi - Yugiri narrative in The Tale of Genji is not central to the depth and complexity the writer Lady Murasaki envisioned for her other characters precisely because the schema does not go far enough beyond social convention to be truly profound. (Yugiri, 39)
6The Akashi Lady, Mother of the Akashi Princess 1. I should say at the outset that this schemata, like the one that precedes, is not motivated by transgression. Genji becomes involved with this lady towards the end of his self-imposed exile in Akashi. She is available with conditions, happy conditions of food and storehouses which nurture Genji's family for the rest of their lives. (Akashi, 13)2. The Akashi lady gives birth to a daughter, later the Akashi princess, Genji's daughter, who is fated by prophecy to become Empress. She does, but not before she is taken away from the care of her biological mother, by Genji. (Miotsukushi, 14)3. The Akashi lady endures a kind of death when Prince Genji arrives at her lonely hermitage in Saga to take the child with him to his house in Nijo where she will be raised by a foster mother, Murasaki no ue. The wintry scene and the events leading up to the removal of the child are among the most enduringly moving in The Tale of Genji. (Usugumo, 19)4. When events leading to the accession of his daughter to the throne as Empress require his undivided attention, Genji becomes a model of the perverted male mother. (Wakana I & II, 34,35)5. Success of his daughter as Empress is due to Genji's continued maternal intercession. (Continuing in the chapters.)
Conclusion The final point of this paper is to examine the problem of whether Prince Genji, in taking up the call of parental duty after death or the taking of orders by Fujitsubo, Yugao, Rokujo Miyasundokoro, Aoi, the Akashi Lady, and the Third Princess, is really mothering or just acting as a surrogate father? Will I be allowed to speak of Genji in a perverted mothering role that challenges old assumptions of the unity of sex role and gender role? Can I say that, by our modern perspective, Lady Murasaki in The Tale of Genji, addresses, through her ironic mode of writing, the question of whether gender and sex roles can be reversed or confused for positive effect, at least fictionally? I believe the answer should be a resounding yes. In Lady Murasaki's world of fiction where irony figures so prominently, the female sex is responsible only for the biological fact of children. No member of the female sex in The Tale of Genji reverses her gender role to become a father to her children for reason of the death or taking of orders by the biological father, but the obverse is true in the case of the male sex being able to assume a reversed gender role as mother as I have proposed in my schemata for perverted motherhood. Genji's role has been referred to by the terms 'hahagokoro' or 'oyagokoro,' but never as 'chichigokoro' or another term for fathering. Why is this true? In the first place, fathers as fathers and mothers as mothers, fulfilling their biological destinies without incident, would have made The Tale of Genji a dull story indeed. Commentators for generations of Genji research have found it necessary to postulate reasons why the Genji should be considered a true story which had living personages as its models (a mode of criticism which holds considerable sway in Japan today and which began with such medieval critics and lexicographers as Yotsutsuji Yoshinari (1326-1402) who produced a twenty volume work of Genji criticism called Kakaisho in 1356), or as a Buddhist story which teaches its readers to beware the evils of social transgressions, pseudo-incest, and grandiose ambitions (the purvey of such early medieval commentators as the daughter of Fujiwara Shunzei who wrote a book called Mumyozoshi in 1196, and of most of the Genji plays in the Noh repertoire). Whatever one might say about Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) and his nativist ideas in Shibun yoryo of 1770 which attempts to account for the textual integrity and novelistic genius of Lady Murasaki Shikibu in terms apart from the religious, moral and social prejudices of whichever age the Genji is being read, he comes closer to the idea of fiction itself, that is that it is born of almost uncontrollable urges to set down what can no longer be held up in the heart. Norinaga's ideas are closer to literary formalism because he makes reference to the famous passage in the chapter Hotaru, 25 in which Tamakazura speaks for Lady Murasaki when she says that authorial responsibility in a monogatari stems from going beyond the obvious to state both the good and the bad of how people live in the world, that which mere seeing and hearing is not enough to contain, and that must be transmitted to future generations. Fiction that goes beyond the real and deals with processes of subliminal aims and desires is what Murasaki Shikibu is doing in her book.In most of the schemata I have proposed, secrecy and privacy, substitution and perversion, are aspects of polarities such as 'sacred and profane' which gives The Tale of Genji its sense as a fiction. It is crucial to the fiction of The Tale of Genji that the main births be tinged with transgression, and proceed through substitution, to overcome the profane and aspire to become reunited with the sacred even though such is never possible. In the sort of fictional world I have outlined, it is impossible for motherhood to occur normally. The Tale of Genji is a radical fiction because Prince Genji himself is the only example of successful mothering. Since he has perpetrated most of the transgressions involving birth, it is he who must attempt to overcome them and restore a mythic wholeness. By the time Genji has built his great palace in the Sixth Ward, not only has he already ceased to be a biological father (not a crucially important responsibility in the Genji narrative anyway), he performs in a world of his own making as a male mother striving to put into place all the pieces of a return to the sanctity of an actual Imperial Palace. In the Rokujo no in, Genji fathers no one. The cycle is stopped. The main narrative, as we have seen, deals not with him, but with Tamakazura and the Third Princess. Yoshiko Shimizu has this to say about the normal female-marriage-mother role in Heian society :"If one accepts that men went to the houses of women, and children were raised in the houses of women, then children belonged to the mother and were chattel of the mother's house. By the same token, a woman's social position became unassailable if she had children. Whether she was recognized as a mother or not is beside the point. In the context of this narrative, it matters not whether the woman has an illicit affair. A secret father, to the extent that he figures in the main theme of the story, looms as a usurper of a woman's world, exerciser of male dominance and paternal prerogative. While in the lesser noble houses, the marriage practice was to visit the bride's house but not to cohabit, the practice among the Imperial family was to take a woman into service, and if she had children, to allow cohabitation only then with the male spouse. Women who lived in their husband's houses were limited to a few from extremely influential families. When a child stood to gain much from the facts of its lineage, it was natural that the mother would want to see that her real child inherit such advantages. Only then would a woman like Murasaki no ue, for example, stop being a woman and be recognized as a 'mother' (as she is in the case of the Akashi princess. My note)." From Shimizu's notion of societal expectation, it becomes apparent that even in the context of The Tale of Genji, children do not belong to the father, a matriarchal concept. But Heian Japan was already a patriarchal society by the time lady Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji. In her fiction, particularly, it would be necessary for children of both sexes to be appropriated by males who act after the fashion of a matriarchically determined world. The patriarch is contained within the matriarch and males take on female roles. This is particularly true for appropriated female children. The Akashi princess, Genji's only true biological daughter, is the best example of this. When the Akashi lady moves from Akashi to her villa in Oi, Genji substitutes himself as mother. He then removes the child to the Rokujo no in and sees that Murasaki no ue brings her up to assume a role that are in keeping with Genji's politics of recapturing the throne. Genji becomes Akikonomu's mother after Rokujo's death in order to ensure that she marry his true biological son Reizei and carry out his political ambition to rule the Imperial Palace. Politics and social advancement are also at the heart of Genji's usurpation of 'officially sanctioned motherhood' from the Third Princess. He allows her a weak, ineffectual form of retirement as a nun living at home to ensure that Kaoru makes his way within the Imperial palace. If Murasaki no ue is the best example in the Genji of a 'woman' who becomes recognized as a mother, Genji himself is capable of the same by default, and does so in the cases I have outlined. Perverted mothering in The Tale of Genji is not only possible, it is necessary to the success of the narrative.