著者

平井 一弘

出版者

大妻女子大学

雑誌

大妻比較文化 : 大妻女子大学比較文化学部紀要 (ISSN:13454307)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.7, pp.67-84, 2006

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This paper intends to portray a specific, so-called modern girl who was born in downtown Tokyo in the last decade of the Meiji era, grew up in the midst of the Taisho democracy period, became a well-known Western-style dressmaker with her training in the U.S. and with her American husband as well, and, then, survived the succeeding years of wars in the early Showa period, undergoing an unavoidable divorce with her pacifist American husband. "The modern girl," says Barbara Sato, "may best be understood as a phantasm rather than a social reality. Nevertheless, that phantasm was a marked feature of an urban society in flux, a powerful symbol of Taisho modernity." (p.49) Admitting that Sato's observation of the modern girl as a social phantasm is correct, the author of this paper still believes it is meaningful to present an "authentic" modern girl. The particular modern girl to be discussed henceforward, with the Japanese maiden name of Masu Hirai and the post-marital name of Masu Gate after "internationally" marrying Paul S. Gate, seems to have sincerely pursued to live a real life of modernity, to live as a professional woman independent both psychologically and economically, despite incessant harassments by traditionally-minded men and women in pre-modern Japan.