Meet the Mother: Maternity, Identity, and Agency in The Tale of Genji
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The Tale of Genji, the 11th century classic work of Japanese literature, has never ceased to be the focus of scholars’ curiosity and exploration. Despite the inclination of contemporary readers to reflect ourselves in the premodern figures who are almost a thousand years away from us—to be confounded by the notorious affairs of the protagonist and sympathize with the female characters—we witness the recent effort of researchers to detach our standard understanding of agency and gender from the study of premodern Japanese literature. This thesis follows the path and aims to complicate the previously constructed definitions of agency/passivity, freedom/restriction, and empowerment/victimization. This study mainly investigates the following three elements in the tale: the mother figures, the fluidity of roles and privileges, and the female characters’ agency. In general, the analysis shows multiple possibilities of interpreting the story.
Description
Type of resource | text |
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Date created | June 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
Author | Chen, Bingrui | |
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Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Stanford Global Studies, Center for East Asian Studies | |
Primary advisor | Stilerman, Ariel |
Subjects
Subject | Premodern Japanese Literature |
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Subject | Heian Literature |
Subject | The Tale of Genji |
Subject | Motherhood |
Subject | Agency |
Subject | Gender |
Subject | Stanford Center for East Asian Studies |
Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Chen, Bingrui. (2021). Meet the Mother: Maternity, Identity, and Agency in The Tale of Genji. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/hm181xh7071
Collection
Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection
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- Contact
- chenbingrui1995@gmail.com
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