การสืบทอดและการเปลี่ยนแปลงรูปแบบความเป็นแม่ในวรรณกรรมเรื่อง คิโนะกะวะ ของอะริโยะฌิ ซะวะโกะ

Abstract

The objective of this research is to analyze the elusive image of motherhood in Japanese novel Kinokawa, written by one of the most prolific Japanese female writers, Sawako Ariyoshi. This research examines (a) how female characters in a fictional Japanese family represent motherhood in the three historical periods of Meiji, Taisho and Showa, and (b) how motherhood is inherited by the next generation in a negotiated fashion, and (c) how social factors contribute to changes in motherhood. This study explains the way Japanese motherhood has transformed across historical periods. This study draws on literary criticism of Ariyoshi’s works, along with the autobiography of the Ariyoshis, and documents on the education system for Japanese women, and the structure of the Japanese family system during the three historical periods. The analysis reveals that all three characters of Hana, Fumio and Hanako, who respectively represent Japanese women of the Meiji, Taisho and Showa, learn to be a mother from their mother and also the formal education that they receive at an all-girls school. However, the characteristics of the mother figures in the novel vary due to the influence of formal education in a given period. It is true that Japanese girls grow up in the looming shadow of the ie system, which used to subjugate women, but the family system gradually faded away and eventually dissolved. The motherhood is no longer essentialized as the women’s intransient quality that serves the preservation of the ie; it instead represents the unconditional love of women that is not bounded by any rules. The women are freed from the longstanding pressures of being “good wives and intelligent mothers”. The results suggest that women’s social roles cannot be separated from the cultural and social contexts of a given historical period. However, just as Ariyoshi tried in Kinokawa through the allegory of the flowing river, the women are portrayed as active agents, who do not cease to negotiate their own destinies despite the constraints of social and cultural pressures.