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SEMINAR II CHAPTERS 14-21 |
MIOTSUKUSHI
Genji makes a pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi. "The rites performed on that occasion, including a lustration ceremony at Naniwa, bear a provocative resemblance to the Yasoshima Festival, which is held at the beginning of a new reign. Moreover, Genji performs one rite that is the exclusive prerogative of the emperor. These gestures prefigure Genji's promotion in "WisteriaLeaves" (Fuji no Uraba). At Sumiyoshi, Genji is already a shadow emperor."p.73 My point about all of this is that Sumiyoshi and its Shinto or nativist implications are far more crucial to the development of plot in the tale than any Buddhist observance, particularly the taking of orders. These always represent a sort of failure, while here the Sumiyoshi observances represent a definite return to power for Genji.
As an allorhythm of the above observance, the Akashi Lady is also present at Sumiyoshi, exchanges poems with Genji, but is generally ignored and left out of the scene to which she does not seem to belong, at least not yet. "for the Akashi Lady, the Sumiyoshi pilgrimage involves neither divine blessing nor imperial power but the recognition of inferior social class." p. 74.
YOMOGIU
Suetsumuhana gives a parting gift of a lock of her luxuriant hair to her maid Jiju who is about to go off to Chikushi ( modern Kyushu). This all means that her old Kyoto house can no longer be maintained in grand style. Downsizing means the end of an era. "Plain heroines are often crowned by lovely hair, from the Lady of Omi, who will appear later, to Jo March of Little Women."F.92 "The "jeweled garland" (Tamakazura)is introduced as an emblem of sisterhood on the very eve of its loss. Sisterhood is a special kind of otherness in is implicit exclusion of men, which proves to be a theme of some importance throughout the work. We should not fail to note, moreover, that it is a sisterhood between mistress and servant, the humblest of surrogates, the furthest removed from the center, yet in the logic of the Genji, one to gain increasing prominence."F.93
"From Notes to Chapter 2, note11: Perhaps, in a sense, this class of women is the most powerful in the Genji; it is from them that the narrators are drawn. In this chapter (Tamakazura), Yugao's wet nurse Ukon must be summoned to duty to reintroduce Tamakazura into the tale....It is in the Uji chapters that the voices of the serving women become distinctly audible."F.323.
USUGUMO
The child is separated from her mother, the Akashi Lady on a snowy winter day in Oi. The scene is the most beautiful accorded to the lady and sets her image as the lady of winter. Remember that the Akashi lady ends up in the Rokujoin's Winter Garden whose gardens are made by Genji to take advantage of the snowfall (rows of verdant pines), etc. pp.76-77. S.333-34.
Fujitsubo's last moment is shared with Genji only. Because of its privacy, she is able to almost speak her love for the first time. "Onher deathbed, Fujitsubo is all but reborn a romantic heroine."p. 44 Investigate the meaning of intimacy here, and compare with the even more intimate deathbed scene of Oigimi when Kaoru is present, in the Agemaki chapter.
Akikonomu is introduced into the Nijoin, Genji's house, after the death of her mother Rokujo. Asking her for her preference of season, Spring or Fall, Akikonomu responds that Autumn would have to be her season because it had been the season of her mother's death. Genji becomes overtly erotic in a poem at this point that gives Akikonomu (Lover of Autumn) her name. See Field, p. 106,S.346.
ASAGAO
"The oneiric(in dreams) union that takes place is distressing and brief ("dreams, "yume, and "tied"/"formed" and "saddening," musubooretsuru). Adding to the still tension is Murasaki's proximity to, yet absolute exclusion from, the secret of the image in forming her own identity." F. 179. For other comments on the poems exchanged between Genji and Murasaki in this dreamlike state, see Field, p. 178. I have always found these passages to be among my favorites in the entire tale.
Genji lies asleep with Murasaki on a frozen winter's night at the end of the chapter, when Fujitsubo appears faintly as though in Genji's dream. "You said you would not let a word of our secret out, but now my name is sullied and I can hide nowhere. I am ashamed, and in the midst of all my suffering, this is all the more painful."S.359, F. 44. This is the final image in the tale of Fujitsubo, unsettling as Field puts it. How do you read it? How is the secret handed to Murasaki?
OTOME
"Genji and Murasaki together...are more like a prince and princess (king and queen or emperor and empress are too adult, serious, mundane) in an imaginary domain. The image, rather less parodoxically than the Genji-Fujitsubo pairing, tantalizes with overtones of brother-sister rule, from the shadowy reaches of archaic history." F. 179