Meet the Mother: Maternity, Identity, and Agency in The Tale of Genji

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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.

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 2021

Author	Chen, Bingrui
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Stanford Global Studies, Center for East Asian Studies
Primary advisor	Stilerman, Ariel

Subject	Premodern Japanese Literature
Subject	Heian Literature
Subject	The Tale of Genji
Subject	Motherhood
Subject	Agency
Subject	Gender
Subject	Stanford Center for East Asian Studies
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/hm181xh7071

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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

Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection

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