著者

菊地 利奈

出版者

滋賀大学経済学会

雑誌

彦根論叢 (ISSN:03875989)

巻号頁・発行日

no.393, pp.18-36, 2012

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This paper discusses the impact and significanceof the "first person confessional narrative" in the literary genre called kanso (confessional remarks), which was a popular literary device by women pioneer writers of Japan in the 1920s and 30s. My focus is on Ikuta Hanayo (1888-1970) and one of her kanso, "Fragments of ménage à trois" ("Sankaku kankei no ittan yori"), which was initially published in the newly founded women's literary journal for women by women, Women's Arts(Nyojin Geijutsu) in 1928 as a piece of kansowritings, and was then published as a piece offiction in her collection in 1929.Hanayo wrote many kanso writings with feministic insights, but "Fragments of ménage à trois" is especially crucial because it suggests a possibility of kanso, which is thought to be anon-fiction piece of work, to be paradoxicallyread as a piece of fiction. It demonstrated thatpersonal remarks of a woman's own (rater miserable) experience in her suppressed life could be a literary theme.The paper first discusses the social and literarybackgrounds of Hanayo's kanso writings published prior to "Fragments of ménage à trois" and analyses the self-image of Hanayo illustratedin these non-fiction writing s.Secondly, it analyses the literary devices, whichHanayo uses in "Fragments of ménage à trois"to be read as a piece of creative writings. In conclusion, the paper suggests the importanceof reassessing these largely forgotten pioneerwomen's writings even if their literary attemptsare not always successful, because their literarychallenges, as a result, apparently encouragedmore women writings to be followed and to bemore successful in the generations to come.