1. Chikimatsu's dramatic theory (which can be found on p. 68 - 71 of your Longman anthology), particularly
"The words of joruri depict reality as it is, but being a form of art it also contains elements that are not found in real life. Specifically, female characters often say things a real woman would not say, but such instances are examples of art. Since they speak openly of things that a real woman would not talk about, the character's true feelings are revealed. Thus, when a playwrigght models a female character on the feelings of a real woman and conceals such things, her deepest thoughts will not be revealed, and contrary to his hopes, the play will not be entertaining. It follows that when one watches a play without paying attention to the artistry, one will probably criticize it on the grounds that the female characters say many discomfiting things that are inappropriate for a woman to say. However, such instances should be regarded as art" (69).
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| Statue in Chikamatsu Park, Amagasaki City |
Reflect here on this remark tracks with The Love Suicides at Amijima. Try to be specific and cite a particular instance or passage to illuminate your claims.
2. Religion. We don't have the background (or time) to do justice to the rich religious context of this play, yet as the introduction to the play in the Longman anthology and the footnotes indicate, the third act has a great deal of religious imagery and allusion in it. Given that our familiar Judeo-Christian understanding of suicide is alien to this play, what cues do you get from the play itself about how suicide fits into the religious assumptions of the viewers for whom it was written?
Deadline: Saturday (2/12), midnight.
5 comments:
On point 1, I can't say with certainty what a real Japanese woman of the time would or would not say and what is appropriate or inappropriate, so I can only cite examples of the women speaking openly of their true feelings. It is interesting that the passage was actually written by Hozumi Ikan, recalling what Chikamatsu had told him when Ikan had visited "at this home many years ago" so it may be possible that what is said here isn't quite correct.
I think there are two major points on the play when Koharu and Osan speak openly of their true feelings. For Osan, it is at the end of Act 2. She expresses her "great secret", how she "felt so unhappy" (59) when she wrote the letter to Koharu. When her father comes in, she tries to stall him, but that fails. She expresses how she still loves Jihei in an attempt to rebuke her father (61) and as she is taken away she declares "my heart is broken!" (61).
In Act 3, Koharu also expresses her true feelings and concerns. She worries that Osan "will despise [her] as a one-night prostitute, a false woman with no sense of decency." (66) At one point, she says that after becoming a Buddga, she wants "to protect women of [her] profession, so that never again will there be love suicides." The chanter tells us explicitly that this "unattainable prayer... touchingly reveals her heart." (65) So this is certainly an example of a woman saying something that reveals her true feelings, although it is difficult to say whether it would be realistic or appropriate for a real Japanese woman of the time to have said that.
I think the key point of what Chikamatsu was saying was, "Art is something that lies between the skin and the flesh [hiniku], between the make-believe and the real." (70) This tracks very well with Amijima - the characters do express their true emotions, but this is blended with a representation of how these characters might behave if they were real people. This is how the artistry of it works - the characters are based on what a real person might say or do, but because in reality they might not be able to say what they really feel, the artistic representation of them does.
In The Love Suicides at Amijima and Eloisa to Abelard, death occupies a prominent place in the consciousness of the characters and readers. However, while Eloisa contemplates death, she does not include suicide as a potential option. Conversely, as we discussed in class on Friday, suicide is not marked by the same negative stigma in Jihei and Koharu's society as it does in in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Although Buddhism shares with western religions a respect for human life, I do not think that most Buddhists would condemn suicide to the same extent that people who subscribe to Judeo-Christian religions would. One's state of mind at the time of death is central to Buddhist thought, so suicide would not be perceived as an escape from one’s suffering but, on the contrary, an mere deferral of suffering, which will return in the individual's next reincarnation. Buddhists consider suffering as something all humanity experience. Therefore, suicide would not be perceived as the ultimate source of suffering but as an action that postpones its resolution.
Despite the different attitudes Love Suicides and Eloisa to Abelard convey regarding suicide, I think they share similar views about the nature of death. As Koharu and Jihei prepare to commit suicide, Koharu tells him that their bodies will not accompany the lovers to the afterlife and will "be pecked by kites and crows" (66). Instead, she claims that they will be united on a spiritual level as their "souls are twined together" (66). Likewise, Eloisa notes that death reveals "What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love" (336). Eloisa and Koharu agree that death separates one's soul from the body, and Heaven is a state where these souls can exist free of bodily oppression.
During those times, the combined influences of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Samurai culture changed the place of the woman in Japanese society. These three institutions were all highly discriminatory towards women. Confucianism stressed the preeminence of men over women, stating: "A woman is to obey her father as daughter, her husband as wife, and her son as aged mother." A basic tenant of Buddhism is that salvation is not possible for women, and the Samurai believed that a woman should look upon her husband as if he were heaven itself. Women could not own property; the husband may kill his wife for being lazy or bad. Women were in all ways subordinate to men. Regarding to the first issue, Chikimatsu's theory would be accurate, the women in those times were not allowed to express their feelings, and they were only allowed to explicitly follow men’s directions. There are portions of the play where Koharu blatantly expresses her feelings, like where Koharu asks for the samurai’s help. Most of the portions where the women expel their feelings wouldn’t happen in real life. The play allows the female characters portray emotions that could never be shown in life, which is what makes it art. I assume that back then a woman’s mind and thoughts were mysterious and when revealed in an innocuous form, through art, were considered a marvel but were conceived otherwise in society.
I agree that the moment before Koharu and Jihei commited suicide is one of the most important moments, in fact it reveals one of Koharu's greatest wishes. Shaun is right. Koharu wants to "protect women of [her] profession, so that never again will there be love suicides"(Mon'zaemon, 65). Kohau not only wishes to protect women like her, she wishes to "save loving creatures at will when once [she] mount[s] a lotus calyx in Paradise and become a Buddha"(65). When the chanter tells the audience that this is "unattainable prayer [...that] touchingly reveals her heart"(65). It is due to the fact that she is a female. In buddhism the the believe is that people get reincarnated based on their actions in this life. With good actions they obtained good karma, meaning that the person would be rewarded with a better life in the next life and bad actions doing the opposite. The eventual goal would be to no longer be reincarnated and eventually achieve nirvana(enlightenment). It was very inappropiate for Koharu to state that she wished to become a buddha. In ancient Japan women were viewed as inferior to men. It was unheared of for a women to reach enlightenment. In fact it was not until Nichiren who lived during (1185–1333) that anyone think that a women could reach enlightenment.
On the surface of point one, it seems that the idea that men "can't read womens' minds" expands across the border of the East and the West.
On a more serious note, I think the actual idea that crossed the borders between East and West was the idea that women are inferior to men in a number of ways. Now, I'm not an expert on Japanese culture at any point in history, but going off of the play and how it portrays Osan and Koharu, it doesn't seem that women had much power. Osan knew throughout the entire play that Jihei was having an affair, yet couldn't call him out on it or demand some sort of compensation. And in act 2 (page 60), when Osan's father arrives, he automatically assumes control of Osan's household and forces her to action. This shows that similar to Victorian times in England, women were very dependent on men for their position in life and their behavior.
The fact that Chikimatsu claims "women would never really say these things" could be taken as a point of fact. He clearly had a better knowledge of society at this point than we did, and if he claims that women would never be this forward, it proves that women were unable to speak out on such matters in this era of Japanese society. Or, Chikimatsu spent too much time with his puppets and didn't get out much (just kidding).
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