研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 61

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

The Furusato as Mother:
Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary
Texts
Lindsay R. MORRISON
1 Introduction
The Meiji Restoration brought about a slew of changes to Japanʼs socialand cultural landscape. One of these changes was a heightened,widespread sense of nostalgia for the furusato ̶ the “native place” or“homeland” ̶ as hordes of people eager to pursue newfound education

and work opportunities flooded into Japanʼs major cities, leaving theirfamilies behind in the countryside. As the furusato is generally a place one
recognizes only upon leaving it, the spatial, temporal, and emotional
distance created by this population shift to urban areas resulted in theidealization and aestheticization of the furusato left behind.1
Within this nostalgia for the furusato, the image of mother frequently
appears, to the extent that the images of the mother and furusato often
overlap each other. So deep-seated and tenacious is this mother-furusato
connection that anthropologist Jennifer Robertson (1988) has stated,“ furusato, as a place redolent of ʻ motherly love, ʼ cannot exist withoutʻmotherʼ” (p. 500-1). Similarly, writer and critic Matsunaga Goichi (1975) has

claimed that for most Japanese people, the furusato is imagined as amaternal figure ̶ a vision that fulfills a latent desire to return to themotherʼs womb (p. 138). The Japanese phrase “haha naru furusato” (literally,“the home that is mother”) also implies the depth of this connection, evensuggesting the two images are one.
This aestheticization of the “home-as-mother,” however, has a distinct
gender bias; that is to say, there is a distinct scarcity of female subjectivity
in discourse on the furusato, especially that which portrays the furusato in
the same positive, idealized light.2 For example, ethnologist Yasui Manami

62(2000) has commented that although “mothers have consistently been
depicted as someone elseʼs furusato,” rarely do they discuss their own
furusato in writing (p. 1). Additionally, Yagi Tōru (1996) has noted, “A house

where a reticent, brusque old man lives by himself is not typically thought
to be nostalgic or a furusato. Rather, places that are infused with the imageof women, or mother, evoke images of the furusato,” admitting that suchan image is “extremely male-centered” (p. 53). Christine Yano (2002) has
observed a similar trend in her work on enka: “The figure of mother herself
rarely appears in enka songs; she surfaces instead as ʻmother remembered,ʼ
especially by sons” (p. 174). The mother is rarely ever the subject; instead,she is more frequently a figure imagined or remembered by someone else,
typically her adult, male children. Furthermore, this “mother remembered”
nearly always possesses the following characteristics: she is kind, selflessly
and unconditionally loving, self-sacrificing, devoted to her children, andthe representative of the warmth and security of the furusato.
Historian Narita Ryūichi (1998), who has written much on the furusato inmodern Japan, has also recognized this gender bias.3 He mentions thatmen write the majority of literature on the furusato, and that a manʼs imageof the furusato is significantly more aestheticized and sentimentalized thana womanʼs. Narita cites the poet Ishikawa Takuboku as an example, statingthat whereas Takuboku himself was famous for writing an abundance ofpoems on his hometown in Iwate prefecture, Takubokuʼs wife Setsuko left
no recorded poems on her furusato, preferring to disclose her feelings to
her closest friends (p. 248-53). While Naritaʼs assessment is accurate, thecentral question remains unanswered: why are women reluctant to write
about the furusato, and why do they not aestheticize it to the same degree
as men?
In order to understand this gender diﬀerence regarding the furusato ̶ inwhich the furusato is connected to some maternal, feminine, nurturing
quality, and yet has little female subjectivity ̶ it is important to consider

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 63

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

the social structure of the home (ie) itself. Although furusato and the home
are not one and the same, it is arguable that the home is an integral part ofthe overall furusato “package,” especially in the Meiji and Taisho periods, inwhich the home and family structure aﬀected the lives and experiences ofmany, and was one of the reasons behind the increased migration to thecity.4 Therefore, it is through analyzing the difference in how men andwomen relate to the home and function within the home that we mayunderstand the diﬀerence in how the furusato is perceived.
Although the Meiji and Taisho periods were an era in which Westernconcepts and structures were being rapidly imported into Japan, the insideof the Japanese home still resembled the traditional ie ( 家 “ house ” or“ family ” ) system: a feudalistic, patriarchal system in which the father

assumed complete control of the family. The main role of a woman within
this system was as the wife/mother ̶ the lowest position in thehousehold ̶ and her primary duty was to give birth to an heir who would
then inherit the house and its assets, and continue the family line. Yet, as
Yamashita Etsuko (1991) has stated, in the pre-war modern period, thehome was the “womanʼs place, and the living incarnate of the woman
become mother” (p. 14). Thus, in a strange contradiction, while the father
served as the lawful and substantive head of the household, the motherbecame the symbolic representation of the home, and it was her
memory ̶ not the fatherʼs ̶ that stayed with her children, who later cameto remember and yearn for her.
For women, however, the home promised little beauty or sweetness.
While the wifeʼs low position within the household remained largely thesame between the pre-modern and modern periods, the structure of thefamily underwent some change. In the pre-modern family, extended family
members lived together or nearby, meaning several hands could assist
with childrearing or household chores. Japanʼs modernization included theimporting of the Western-style nuclear family, meaning the responsibility

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of running of the household was left entirely to the wife and mother-inlaw, if she lived with the family. The contraction of the family unit ended up
creating new frictions and pressures, most especially for women.
Consequently, Japanʼs pre-war transitional period, still clinging to feudal
ideals and ethics in the space of the home while simultaneously aspiring toWestern ideals, left women as victims of a new modernity.
The objective of this paper is to explore the roles of men and women
within the home ̶ especially women in the role of mother ̶ in Meiji andTaisho era Japan in an attempt to grasp the gender diﬀerence in how thefurusato is imagined and remembered. To achieve this, the paper will

examine three literary texts from the Meiji and Taisho periods: Shimizu
Shikinʼs “The Broken Ring [ こわれ指環 Koware yubiwa]” (1891), Mori Ōgaiʼs“Half-Day [ 半日 Hannichi]” (1909), and Murō Saiseiʼs “My Childhood Years [ 幼年 時 代 Yōnen jidai]” (1919). Literature is chosen as the medium of analysis

because the furusato , the home, and the mother are all essentially
emotional topics, ones that concern our deepest, most private memories,
and literature is one of the mediums best suited for private emotional
expression. Furthermore, literature allows for a multi-layered analysis,
which is suitable for this paper, as the analysis is not strictly textual; byusing resources from other fields, including ethnology and anthropology,
the author aims at a cultural analysis that uses literature as its medium.
The selection of these stories was primarily based on the extent to which
each story features various aspects of the relationship between the motherand the home, and also because of the variety in the authorsʼ backgrounds(one daughter, one firstborn son, and one adopted son). Due to the limited
selection of stories, however, an overarching analysis of modern Japanese
literature is beyond the scope of this paper, and so the experiences ofsocial groups or peoples not represented in these texts will not be treated
here. This research does not attempt to represent all experiences with thefurusato in this period; it is limited to the elements within the selected

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 65

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

stories, and thus tries to make a modest contribution to the field with such.
In examining how male and female roles diﬀer within the home, the paper
will also explore related issues, such as marriage laws, the ie system, andaﬃliation to the home, in order to explain the scarcity of female subjectivity
in representations and recollections of the furusato.
2 Literary Analysis
2.1 Shimizu Shikinʼs “The Broken Ring”

Shimizu Shikinʼs (1868-1933) debut novella, “The Broken Ring [ こわれ指環 Koware yubiwa]” (1891), is modeled on Shikinʼs own experience with ̶and escape from ̶ a bad first marriage. The story told from the perspectiveof a young woman who is forced into an arranged marriage by her father,and who suﬀers a strained and loveless married life as a result. Yet, insteadof resigning herself to the marriage or committing suicide as a method of
escape ̶ as was not uncommon for the time ̶ the narrator divorces her
husband and vows to use the experience as motivation to work towards
improving womenʼs rights.
When “The Broken Ring” was published, prostitution was a profitable,
government-sanctioned business, and having multiple wives or mistresses
inside or outside of the home was a fairly common practice (Watanabe,
1980, p. 76). Furthermore, feudal ethics ̶ one of which stated that a wife
should be completely obedient to her husband ̶ were still considered tobe the foundation of family life. In this way, Shikinʼs story, which criticizes
bigamy, feudal ethics, and traditional marriage laws in Japan, wasunprecedented for its time. As the narrator of “The Broken Ring” states,
marriage was like the “lottery,” and “whether one was lucky or unlucky was
not something one had no control over ̶ one simply had to leave it up tofate” (Shimizu, 1983, p. 16). Moreover, in the Meiji period, divorce ̶ nomatter how awful the marriage ̶ was considered to be “unimaginably
shameful” (Watanabe, 1980, p. 78). For women desperate enough to use

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any method to escape an unhappy marriage, death was the only option
close at hand. Seen in this light, the narratorʼs decision to divorce was arisky, even revolutionary, one.
Despite the narrator ʼ s initial wish to become a teacher and remain
unmarried, her father arranges a marriage for her upon her turning
eighteen, insisting that it is a better course for her. Once the narrator enters
her husbandʼs household, however, she immediately experiences friction in
adjusting to his home, wondering in despair, “Am I to spend the rest of mylife in this house?” (Shimizu, 1983, p. 19). On reluctant outings with her
husband, the narrator longs instead for the times when she still lived withher parents, comparing those fond memories with her present
unhappiness: “Ah, if only I were here with my mother and sister ̶ what fun

that would be! ” ( p. 19 ). Time does not erase the narrator ʼ s feelings ofuneasiness and alienation, and her frequent trips home to visit her motherare her only escape from the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of her
husbandʼs home.
The mother in “The Broken Ring” is portrayed as an ideal mother and wifeof the Meiji period: timid, submissive, quiet, self-sacrificing, and deferential
to her husband and children. The narrator describes her as someone wholives by the tenets of Kaibara Ekkenʼs Greater Learning for Women, “applying
them perfectly to herself and her way of life” (Shimizu, 1983, p. 16).5 The
narrator sees the inequality in her parentsʼ relationship, and views it with acritical eye, observing that her mother “would only talk to [her] father if it
was at a distance, bowing, with both of her hands on the floor” (p. 16).
Growing up watching her mother treat her father “as if he were some kindof special guest” in their own house, the narrator comes to think of the fateof a woman “as something pitiful and empty,” wishing that “somehow [she]could live [her] entire life without having to marry, and to live comfortably
and carefree” (p. 16).
However, the narrator has no concrete ideas on how to escape the

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Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

typical life of a married woman, or any knowledge about alternative paths,
as she explains: “ around the time I married, the seeds of women ʼ s
education were finally just starting to be sowed, therefore I had not evenhalf of the way of thinking that I possess today [...] I had never dreamed ofanything like the marriages between Westerners, and knew nothing aboutmarriage laws. I took the old Japanese customs as a matter of course”(Shimizu, 1983, p. 15). The narrator continues to describe the state of
womenʼs education in the early Meiji period as follows:
The girlʼs school where I received my education was taught in acompletely ethics-based Chinese learning style, and even the books
they made us read, like Liu Xiangʼs Biographies of Exemplary Women,
trained me to think solely in that way. For example, if you were
engaged from the time you were a baby to marry a man whom you
had never even met before, if he died, you would have to cut off
your nose and ears to show that you would never cheat on him. Or, if
a mother-in-law was cruel and tried to strangle her daughter-in-law,
it was considered unethical for a married woman to leave of her own
accord, as it was regarded the highest of virtues for a woman not toleave her husbandʼs house. (Shimizu, 1983, p. 15-16)
Western ideals such as romantic love and chivalry were still fairy tales in
Meiji Japan; within the household, the husband had absolute power andthe wife was merely a supplementary, subservient figure. Yet, while thenarratorʼs education was founded in a Confucian, ethics-based style oflearning, the age she grew up in was characterized by the rapid importingof Western ideals and structures. This friction between old and new ways ofthinking erupts within the narrator, who follows the well-travelled path ofgenerations past, only to discover the strain it places on her, mentally andphysically.

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Not long into the narratorʼs marriage, a maid reveals to the narrator that
her husband has another wife, whom he goes to visit in secret for days at atime. This revelation creates an additional strain on the marriage, which inturn takes a toll on the narratorʼs health. During a visit with her mother, themother immediately notices the narratorʼs pale, gaunt appearance, andrealizes that she and her husband have unwittingly placed their daughterin an unhappy situation. The motherʼs already fragile health is worsened bythis knowledge, eventually leading her to “ disappear along with themorning dew on the autumn of [her] nineteenth year” (Shimizu, 1983, p.
21). Once the narrator realizes that her unhappy marriage may havecontributed to the deterioration of her motherʼs health, she becomes“ indignant at the plight of women, ” and chooses to divorce after

unsuccessful attempts to improve her own crumbling, stifling marriage (p.
21). Once her divorce is finalized, the narrator vows to devote the rest of
her life to working for womenʼs rights, so that her motherʼs death would
not be in vain, and to neutralize the pain and suﬀering she experienced inher own marriage.
Underlying the narratorʼs discomfort in trying to adjust to her husbandʼshome is the issue of a womanʼs “aﬃliation” ( 帰属 kizoku) to a family. Upon
marriage, a woman lost her place within her parentʼs home and became amember of her husbandʼs family. As sociologist Inoue Haruyo (2006) writes,“pre-war marriages, as regulated by Meiji civil law, took the form of ʻthewife entering the husbandʼs home.ʼ At the time of marriage, the wife had to
discard the environment and way of thinking of the home she had grown
up in, including her preferences or the way she seasoned food, and becamea member of her husbandʼs house. Furthermore, she became a ʻpowerlesspersonʼ with no legal rights; not only did she not have the same rights as aman, but she did not even have parental rights to the children she bore” (p.
40). For women, traditional marriage practices meant relinquishing their
entire identity and upbringing.

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 69

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

While a wife was permitted to return to her parentsʼ home on occasion ̶
as the narrator of “The Broken Ring” does ̶ these visits were neither long
nor leisurely. The length was typically determined by how much the wifeʼspresence was needed at her husbandʼs house; for example, returning homeduring the harvesting season would be difficult for a farmer ʼ s wife
(Hasegawa, 1988, p. 80). Other factors, such as distance and the wifeʼs
relationship with her mother-in-law, influenced the frequency and durationof these trips home (Yasui, 2000, p. 7). Consequently, a married womanʼsaffiliation to a home was unstable, as she legally “ belonged ” to herhusbandʼs family, but was able ̶ and obligated ̶ to make infrequent trips
to her parentsʼ house, in which she was no longer legally a family member.
“The Broken Ring” presents two women whose lifestyles are determinedby ̶ and suﬀer as a result of ̶ the home. The narratorʼs mother, who acts
the part of the ideal Meiji wife, leads a “pitiful and empty life” in constant
subservience to her husband, and dies partly from the guilt of having
placed her daughter in an even worse situation than herself. The motherʼspassing alerts the narrator to the necessity for initiating change, her death
symbolizing the impending destruction of feudal morality and the
traditional family and marriage systems. The narrator, while able to escapeher marriage, is still scarred by its mark on her life, represented by thebroken ring she continues to wear. In contrast to her mother, she
represents the transitional period in womenʼs rights: she must bear theburden of former generations, while attempting to improve the situation
for current and future generations of women. Within Shikinʼs story, we see
two female characters scarred by the violent changes occurring in thefamily and home during the Meiji period, but also attempts towards
forging new paths for women.
2.2 Ōgai Moriʼs “Half-Day”“Half-Day [ 半日 Hannichi]” (1909) is one of Mori Ōgaiʼs (1862-1922) more

70

unusual works. The piece is written in a casual, spoken vernacular ̶
atypical for Ōgai, who preferred a rigid, formalistic style ̶ and is also a rare
autobiographical piece that exposes the relationships between themembers of the Mori household: primarily, the tempestuous relationshipbetween Ōgai, his wife, and his mother, depicted within the story as the“professor ( 博士 hakase),” “wife ( 奥さん oku-san),” and “mother ( 母君 haha-gimi),” respectively.

The story takes place during the span of half a day, from daybreak until
noon. The narrative takes place within the professorʼs home, and revolves
around a conversation between the professor and his wife about the wifeʼsintense dislike of her mother-in-law, who lives with the couple and theirsmall daughter. Needless to say, stories depicting conflict between the wifeand the mother-in-law are common fare in Japan. However, stories of thistype usually depict the mother-in-law as a cruel bully and the wife as ahapless victim. “Half-Day” instead presents an unusual twist on this theme:
the wife is illustrated as a truly monstrous being who threatens the
harmony of the professorʼs household with her irrational, hysterical rages
towards the mother-in-law.
The wife makes no attempt to conceal her fears or her deep dislike of her
mother-in-law. She complains incessantly about her mother-in-lawʼs voiceand the fact that she has complete control over the household budget andnot the wife, and refuses to be in the same room as she, referring to her as“that person” ( あの人 ano hito). When the professor entreats his wife to callher “mother,” the wife replies, “I came to this house to be your wife, not tobe that personʼs child” (Mori, 1987, p. 463). As previously discussed, when awoman married into her husbandʼs house, her affiliation shifted to thehusbandʼs family, and she became a member of that house. Therefore, thewifeʼs outright rejection of familial ties to the professorʼs mother showed aflagrant disregard for feudal ethics and the traditional family system. For
his part, the professor is utterly bewildered by his wifeʼs rejection of his

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Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

mother, and considers her seemingly irrational behavior in the following
way:
In a country where such concrete ideas as filial piety exist, how could
such a woman, who says awful things about her mother-in-law to
her own husband, have been born? Even in Western thought, themother is something sacred, so there is not a single woman who
thinks it is acceptable to insult her mother-in-law in front of her
husband. Of course, in the history of both the East and West,whether you look at novels or plays, there is no woman to be found
like my wife. I suppose this, too, is one of the peculiar products ofthis time period, when everything is being reevaluated. (Mori, 1987,
p. 481-482)
Ōgai ̶ and presumably, the professor ̶ “completely obeyed traditional

feudal ethics” throughout his entire life, and showed his mother unending
adoration and respect (Tanaka, 2005, p. 212). Moreover, as the eldest son
and successor of the Mori family, the preservation of the household was his
responsibility. Ōgai took the helm of the Mori family at the age of eighteen,upon his fatherʼs death. Both his father and grandfather had been adopted
into the Mori family, which likely added to Ōgaiʼs sense of obligation tomaintain and protect the house. As women were unable to inherit, theadoption of sons was an integral part of the traditional family system, for it
was only through sons that the house and family name could be preserved.
For a man like Ōgai, who devotedly upheld such traditional values, the only
way to understand his wifeʼs words and actions was to attribute them tothe transitional period that they were living in, a time in which “everything[was] being reevaluated.”Ōgai based the dysfunctional, discordant relationship between the wifeand mother in “Half-Day” on the real-life conflict between his wife, Shige,

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and his mother, Mineko. As Matsubara Junʼichi (1957) indicates, Shige was
the eldest daughter of Araki Hiroomi, an imperially appointed judge in theSupreme Court of Judicature, and grew up in a wealthy, cheerful, liberal,and loving household (p. 34). In comparison, the Mori household was
frugal and severe. Having to adjust to this drastic change in atmosphereand economic circumstance undeniably played a role in Shigeʼs mental
deterioration. Daughter Ōgai Mari corroborates this in her memoirs bysaying that the type of behavior described in “Half-Day” was seen only atthe beginning of their marriage (as cited in Tanaka, 2005, p. 231). On theother hand, Ōgaiʼs thrifty mother, Mineko, probably found Shige to be
spoiled and her spending habits to be extravagant and reckless, meaning
there were points of contention on both sides (p. 35). Yet, in “Half-Day,”
written from the professor ʼ s ( Ō gai ʼ s) perspective, the blame is placed
entirely on the wifeʼs side.
Literary critic Tanaka Miyoko (2005) keenly observes that, through his
depiction of their household conflict, Ōgai ends up revealing the kind of
relationship he shared with his mother: that is, a relationship in which hismother had a hand in all of his daily aﬀairs and fretted over him “as if shewere his lover” (p. 233). In actuality, Ōgaiʼs mother was well aware of theextent of power she had over her son, even claiming in a personal letterthat Ōgai “would never question [her] decisions” (Matsubara, 1957, p. 35).
In such a household, where the mother controls the son and assumes all of
the wifeʼs duties, the wife herself would have no place at all. Matsubara Junʼichi (1957) claims that at the heart of the friction between wife and motherwas really a struggle for Ōgaiʼs love, but it seems too reductive to attributethe conflict to a mere grappling for the professorʼ s attentions (p. 35).
Certainly, jealousy was felt on the part of Ōgaiʼs wife, even if her depictionin “Half-Day” was an exaggerated representation of the actual situation.
However, as Tanaka (2005) reminds us, in order to evoke such an abnormal
amount of jealousy from the wife, the relationship between mother and研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 73

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

son must have been exceedingly intimate (p. 233).
While Ōgai and his mother may have been exceptionally close, in general
the traditional Japanese family prioritizes the mother-child relationshipover that of the wife and husband. As Yamashita (1991) states, in this way
the wife in “Half-Day” “has a more Westernized consciousness” in terms ofher belief that the married coupleʼs relationship should be the foundationof a family, and not the relationship between mother and child (p. 63).
Thus, at the core of the fight between wife and mother-in-law is not merely
a battle for the husband ʼs affection, but rather a generational conflict
between new and old beliefs about how the family should be structured.
Yamashita calls “Half-Day” an “extremely modern” story that depicts “thetransition period in which the destruction of the ie system was
unavoidable” (p. 65). Unlike Ōgai himself, who regarded his wifeʼs actions
with a mixture of puzzlement and dread, Yamashita sees the wife ʼ sdemands for an increased emphasis on the wife-husband relation as
predicting “the coming of a bright, new age” for women (p. 65).
In the meantime, however, the reality for women living in this transition
period was dark. The sudden change in environment ̶ to one that wascolder and sparser, and in which the mother-son relationship formed an
impenetrable wall around the home ̶ undoubtedly contributed to theonset of the wifeʼs hysteria. However, it can also be argued that the motherin “Half-Day” was also a victim, though not in the way that Ōgai imagined
her to be. As Ōgai was the eldest son and the head of the Mori household,it was customary for his mother to live with him, as the mother in “HalfDay” does with the professor. This is because, in essence, a woman had nohouse to call her own; her aﬃliation to a home was dependent on the men
in her life. A Japanese proverb encapsulates this unstable relationshipbetween women and the home: “onna sangai ni ie nashi ( 女三界に家なし ),”or “women have no home in three worlds.” The “three worlds” referred tohere are the past, present, and future; in other words, women have no74

place to call home throughout all the stages of their lives. As a daughter, awomanʼs home is with her father; as a wife, her home is with her husband;as a widow, her home is with her eldest son. Even if the mother in “HalfDay” wished to leave the married couple alone, she herself was bound toher sonʼs home, as well.
Although “Half-Day” seems to present an almost comically exaggerated
take on a wife/mother-in-law conflict, the story also reveals a household
being upheaved by the violent changes of Japan ʼs Meiji period, when
traditional values and the family structure were being questioned. Throughthe depiction of this conflict and the wifeʼs hysteria, the story also exposes
the taxing effects the ie system had on womenʼs mental states. The shift
towards the nuclear family led to more interaction ̶ and thus more
conflict ̶ between diﬀerent generations, especially in the case of the wifeand mother-in-law, who were not related by blood, and between whom
power struggles would occasionally erupt. Similar to as in “The Broken
Ring,” “Half-Day” also shows a generational difference in expectations
towards marriage. The mothers in both stories epitomize the Meiji ideal
wife ̶ devoted, self-sacrificing, thrifty, subservient ̶ and both haveresigned themselves to their situations. The narrator in “The Broken Ring”
and the wife in “Half-Day,” however, desired more from their marriages,
were unhappy with the traditional family model, and made attempts toimprove what impeded their personal happiness or fulfillment. As a resultof their eﬀorts, both stories show glances of the Meiji home teetering on
destruction.
2.3 Murō Saiseiʼs “My Childhood Years”“My Childhood Years [幼年時代 Yōnen jidai ]” (1919) is renowned poet

Murō Saiseiʼs (1889-1962) first attempt at prose. The story is told from theperspective of a small boy, aged seven, who was adopted by anotherfamily at birth, but who maintains a close relationship with his biological

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 75

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

parents, particularly with his mother. The sudden death of the boyʼ sbiological father leads to the discovery that the mother was really his
fatherʼs maid, resulting in the motherʼs expulsion from their home withouteven being able to say goodbye to her son. Out of desperation andsadness, the boy picks fights, wanders the streets, and prays daily to a
Buddhist statue in the hope of meeting his mother again. The boyʼs fervent
prayers garner the sympathy of an old monk residing in a nearby temple,
to which the boy eventually goes to live. The new surroundings cannot
replace the boyʼs longing for his mother, however, and the story ends inthe dark, lonely winter of his thirteenth year.
Although there are two mothers depicted within “My Childhood Years”̶
the narratorʼs biological mother and his adopted mother ̶ the narratorʼsemotions clearly lie with the former. He visits his biological motherupwards of twice a day, to her worry and to the adopted motherʼs chagrin.
The home of his biological parents is depicted as an idyllic paradise, where
the narrator is treated as a guest, presented with tea and sweets whenever
he comes to visit, and where he is allowed to sleep on his motherʼs lap on
long, quiet afternoons. While the narrator calls his biological mother “strict,”
he adds that she is also “easy to talk to,” and that every time he looks at her,
his heart wells up with the feeling, “this is my true mother ̶ the motherwho gave birth to me” (Murō, 2003, p. 8).
Such an aestheticized, sentimental depiction of the biological motherand the parents ʼ home might lead the reader to expect the adopted
mother and home to be cold and foreboding in comparison, but this is not
the case. The adopted mother is actually more lenient than the biologicalmother, and sincerely cares about the narratorʼs well being. Yet, the narrator
cannot become close to her, feeling as if “a wall were stuck in-between mymotherʼs and my words, and in every one of our daily actions” (Murō, 2003,
p. 14). As Imano Tetsu (2001) indicates, the rejection of the adopted
motherʼs love on the part of the narrator is not the fault of the adopted

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mother; rather, “the intense love and admiration for his biological mother,which dominated the narratorʼs psyche, did not allow him to become close
to his adopted mother” (p. 31). Saiseiʼs decision to portray the adopted
mother as kind rather than cruel is an unusual one, for it gives the narrator
no other reason to reject her love other than the fact that they are notrelated by blood. In this way, Saiseiʼs narrative suggests that nature or
biology conquers all; even though the adopted mother loves the narrator
and her home is not unwelcoming, the narrator still seeks his biologicalmother and believes that true love and understanding can only come fromher.
Upon the death of the father in “My Childhood Years,” the narratorʼsbiological mother is driven out of the house because of her lowly position
as a maid, and not as a lawful wife. The narrator had no knowledge of thisat the time of his fatherʼs death, however, and so he was merely confused
as to “where [his] elegant, gentle mother had gone oﬀ to” (Murō, 2003, p.
35). The narratorʼs thoughts continually turn to her, weeping at the thought“of how miserable [his] pitiful mother must be, with no place in the entire

world to call home” (p. 49). Out of grief, the narrator completely rejects his
adopted mother, declaring, “there is no reason that anyone should have
two mothers” (p. 49). “My Childhood Years” seems to teach that oneʼs
biological mother is an absolute entity, for which nothing can besubstituted. When the narrator decides, “there is no reason that anyone
should have two mothers,” he implies not only that the biological motheris irreplaceable, but also that she ought not to be replaced.
Ishiko Junzō (2006), in his research on the popularity of the mother motif
in modern Japanese culture, has stated that in Japan, it is important for themother figure to be the biological mother. In the case of stepmothers,
adopted mothers, and mothers-in-law, the physical bond that unites
children with their biological mothers is absent: that is, the bond createdfrom the child having once been part of the motherʼs flesh. Without this

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 77

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

p hys i c a l b o n d, a cco rd i n g to I s h i k o, o n e c a n n o t ex p e r i e n ce a
“ transcendental connection to something eternal in which complete

identification is possible, like with the earth or the ocean” (p. 132). In otherwords, one cannot “connect to nature” (p. 132). It was this connection to“nature” that Saisei seemed to prize so highly, and that flows throughout

the narratorʼs longing for his mother in “My Childhood Years.”
The fate of the biological mother in “My Childhood Years” is pitiably
tragic, more so than any of the other mothers examined in these threestories. As a maid, her social bearing was too low to warrant a marriage toher employer, and her status as an effectually “powerless person” meantthat she had no rights to keep her own son. Moreover, she had to keep her
only son away from her, for fear of what his adopted mother and society
might think, and was ultimately driven out of her only home with only theclothes on her back. Saig ō Takehiko (1971) comments on her tragic
depiction in the story, saying, “in the world of Meiji, this was a womanʼs
greatest unhappiness” (p. 100). In a way, the image of the adopted motheris also a tragic one. She sees that her beloved son wants to be with his
biological parents, but because of the eyes of society and how the iesystem works, she must scold him and try to keep him in their home: “bycoming here, you became a part of this house. If you keep going back toyour parentʼs home, people will think something is strange” (Murō, 2003, p.
13). As discussed in the previous section, when a son was adopted into afamily, he became an oﬃcial member of that house and lost any legal ties
to his biological parents, similar to how married women became aﬃliatedto the husbandʼs family ̶ all for the sake of preserving the “home.” Unlike
the previous two stories, the Meiji home in “My Childhood Years” does notshow visible signs of destruction. Similarly, whereas signs of a new female
image and new family structure emerge in stories like “The Broken Ring”
and “Half-Day,” “My Childhood Years” paints its female characters in aceaselessly pitiful and heartbreaking light.

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Just as the narrator of “My Childhood Years,” Saisei himself was the son ofa maid, who also had to relinquish her son at birth. In his novel, Rōshishi (弄獅子), Saisei admits the fact that he “did not really know her personality,

appearance, characteristics, or even what happened to her when she died,intensified [his] love for [his] mother” (1965, p. 351). Furthermore, in MurōʼsAuthor’s Notes (作家の手記 Sakka no shuki), he mentions that he felt no

closeness or love for his father, but considered him as an “unnecessary”
presence (1946, p. 10). He explains that he had no desire to learn or think
deeply about his father; instead, he felt “disgusted” at his old age, and evenconsidered him partially responsible for contributing to his mother ʼ s
unhappiness (p. 10). From Saisei ʼ s point of view, the father was an
unnecessary ̶ even unwelcome ̶ interference to the mother-childrelationship. Yamashita Etsuko (2005) indicates that the feelings Saisei bore
towards his father were neither atypical nor even unusual: “in a maternal,
oppressive system that places the mother-son relationship at its core, thefatherʼs existence is a mere formality, a mere decoration for the tokonoma”(p. 60). As in “Half-Day,” here we also see a mother-son relationship with analarming degree of intimacy, a hollow (or absent) father figure, and a desireon the part of the son to depict the mother as a tragic victim.
Other researchers have noted the tendency to depict the mother as abeautiful, tragic figure in Japanese culture and literature. Saigō Takehiko(1971) reasons this unilaterally tragic depiction of mothers within modern
Japanese literature as follows: “Perhaps it is because although Japan began
its path towards modernity as a result of the Meiji Restoration, having left
the feudal family system in place, the mothers of Japan had no otherchoice but to live in that way as they were at the bottom of that heavy,
oppressive society and home” (p. 143). At the root of this depiction of themother as a fundamentally tragic entity is a distinctly male aesthetic that
longs for a sad, beautiful mother figure that stimulates Oedipal fantasies, as
they imagine themselves to be the only ones who can “save” the tragic研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 79

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

mother. This co-dependence between mother and child was no doubt
caused in part by the traditional family structure, as Yamamura Toshiaki(1977) explains:
Traditionally, the wife was viewed as a tool to give birth to children,and it was through children that the wife was able to secure her
position. The motherʼs place in society was generally low, and she
had no other options but to depend on her children to guarantee
her life in old age. The wife was forced into submission by thehusband/mother-in-law, and her children were her only outlets forher feelings. Free expression of love between a husband and wife
was not permitted, and so if the wife were frustrated by themarriage, she would try to ease that dissatisfaction through her
children. In this way, for the mother, the child became the only
reason for her to live, and attachment to the child emerged. The
child would then feel indignant towards the father, who tried toexert control through his power, and sympathized with the selfsacrificing, devoted motherʼs tragic position, and afterwards, would
come to yearn for her. (p. 142)
Thus, the extreme attachment between mother and child was largely
due to the wifeʼs low position within the household and it being one of the
few relationships in which an uninhibited exchange of love was permitted.
Ishiko Junzō (2006) echoes this by saying, “the more the mother suﬀers andis unhappy, the more she is aestheticized and sanctified by the child. The
mother herself also suffers in order to be more easily aestheticized andsanctified by her offspring, and clings to her children” (p. 25). Still, there
remains a noticeable diﬀerence in how sons and daughters few the tragic
mother. All three children in the stories presented here are portrayed ashaving a close relationship with their mothers (the narrator in “The Broken

80

Ring,” the professor in “Half-Day,” and the narrator in “My Childhood Years”),
but only the female narrator in “The Broken Ring” views her motherʼs tragic
situation as something weak, pitiful, and empty, and fervently hopes for adifferent life for herself. In contrast, the two sons reveal a moreaestheticized, sentimentalized vision of the mother. For daughters, who areable to project themselves onto their mothers, the diﬃcult life of a married
woman was a fate they hoped to avoid, but because they knew they
themselves would be subject to it, it is unsurprising that they would not
idealize a motherʼs tragedy: it could very well be their future, too. As sonslacked the same kind of identification with the mother, it was easier forthem to romanticize the beautiful, tragic, loving mother figure.
Though typically viewed as a nostalgic, though highly idealized, piece on
a boyʼs childhood, “My Childhood Years” also presents a brutal depiction of
the ie system. Each character in the piece is somehow constrained or
tormented by the home: the narrator cannot stay with his biologicalparents due to his adoption, the narratorʼs biological mother cannot marryher employer, keep her child, or stay in her loverʼs home, and the adopted
mother must keep the narrator, whom she genuinely cares for, away fromhis biological parentsʼ house against his will. “My Childhood Years” presents
the reader with characters who are oppressed by the home ̶ who must
limit themselves and their desires for the sake of the home and how society
expects it to function.
3 Concluding Remarks
As seen through these three literary texts, the frequent overlapping of
the images of mother and furusato and the gender bias in how the furusato
is imagined are rooted in the gender diﬀerence regarding roles within thehome. Unlike men, who generally had a more clearly defined relationshipwith the home ̶ they were to be successors or non-successors, and that
determined their ability to stay within the natal home ̶ women

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 81

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

maintained a more complicated relationship with the home and family.
While a woman was bound to the home, that home was never fixed, nor
was it ever truly her own. Upon marriage to another family, a woman had
to relinquish her former identity and preferences in order to assimilate into
the husbandʼs family. As such, a married woman could not as easily idealizeor sentimentalize the home ̶ and by extension, the furusato ̶ as a man
could; for women, the home merely signified work. In the family structureof the Meiji and Taisho periods, the house was not only the wife/motherʼsworld, but also her job, as it was her duty to maintain the household. If
maintaining the home is one ʼ s job ̶ one ʼ s everyday reality ̶ one isunlikely to yearn after it or idealize it.
Furthermore, it was difficult for women to aestheticize a place thatroutinely oppressed them and chained them to a system from which theyreceived few benefits. In short, the home was not a beautiful, sentimental
place for women. As Inoue Haruyo (2006) states, “the wife birthed thesuccessor for the continuance of the family, obeyed her mother-in-law,protected the grave and Buddhist altar of her husbandʼ s home, andentered that grave herself” (p. 40). It was a place where one had to abandon
oneʼs identity and adjust to a completely new way of life while occupying
the lowest position within the family ̶ moreover, after one had alreadyreached adulthood and established oneʼs own lifestyle and preferences.
The word furusato implies a place is filled with fond memories andsentimental feelings, that it is an emotional escape from the harrowing
outside world. Because of their relationship to and role within the home,
however, many women in the Meiji and Taisho periods could notaestheticize the furusato in the same way that men could. Thus, the imagesof the mother and the furusato may intersect, but in order to reach thatsymbolic unification, the women in this period were made to pay a heavy
price.

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Footnotes
1

An in-depth analysis of the term furusato and issues pertaining to it, such asurban/rural dynamics or nationalism, exceeds the scope of this paper. For a moredetailed investigation of furusato in Japanese culture, see the authorʼs otherworks: “Home of the Heart: the Modern Origins of Furusato” (ICU Comparative
Culture, no. 45, 2013) and “Kinsei ni okeru ʻfurusatoʼ-kō” (Asian Cultural Studies,no. 41, 2015).

2

Writer Hayashi Fumikoʼs novel Hōrōki (1930) is often mentioned in research on thefurusato because of the female narratorʼs provocative statement, “I do not have afurusato (watashi wa furusato o motanai).” Though the narratorʼs upbringing is aunique one and perhaps not comparable to the average personʼs, it supports theclaim that women do not view the furusato in the same overwhelmingly positiveand idealized way as men do.
3

Naritaʼs research on furusato can be found in the following books: “Kokyō” to iu
monogatari: toshi kūkan no rekishigaku (1998), Kokyō no sōshitsu to saisei (2000),
Rekishigaku no narrative: minshūshi kenkyū to sono shūhen (2012).

4

There are many differences between the two words, not all of which can betreated here, but essentially, furusato is the more expansive of the two,
occasionally comprising the village, city, or landscape surrounding the natal
place. Moreover, it is used in different contexts (as mentioned, furusato is the“home left behind,” and not typically used to describe the place in which a person

currently lives), and has very diﬀerent cultural and emotional implications.
5

In Japanese, Onna Daigaku (女大学) ̶ a text used for teaching women proper
Confucian ethics, written by Confucian scholar Kaibara Ekken.

研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 83

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

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研究論文：ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」—明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって 85

Research paper : The Furusato as Mother: Gendered Perspectives on the Home in Three Meiji and Taisho Literary Texts

ジェンダーの視点からみる「母」と「ふるさと」
̶明治大正期の三つの文学作品における家の構造をめぐって
リンジー・モリソン

近代日本文化や文学において、「母」と「ふるさと」は同一のものと見なされることが多いものの、母の視点から叙述された「ふるさと文学」は極めて少ない。ほとんどの場合において、母は主体ではなく、他人（たいていそれは大人になった息子であるが）による想像、または記憶に宿る客体なのである。近代日本は急速な西洋化を迎えたのにもかかわらず、家の中はいまだに近代以前の家制度そのものであった。その家制度というのは、封建的な家父長制であり、そこでは父は絶対的権力を握っていた。家制度では、母は家制度のなかでは位が最も低く、後継者を産む道具としてしか見られていなかった。しかし、大人になった子どもがふるさとを振り返ったとき、その記憶の中では、絶対的権力をもつ父の姿はなく、献身的で悲劇的な母親像だけしか残っていなかったのである。その過程により、母はふるさとの代表的なシンボルの一つとなったのである。なぜ母はふるさとを表象するようになったのか、そしてなぜ男性はふるさとを美化し、理想化してきたものの、女性はそうしなかったのだろうか。

この論文では、三人の近代作家による三冊の短編小説の分析を通して、以上の問いを検討する。短編小説は、清水紫琴の「こわれ指環」（明治 24 年）、森鷗外の「半日」（明治 42 年）、室生犀星の「幼年時代」（大正 8 年）である。母とふるさとの関係とふるさと意識におけるジェンダー格差を考察するために、結婚制度や、家制度における母の位置や、家への帰属といった関連問題にも焦点を合わせる。

Keywords:
母、ふるさと、家、近代日本、ジェンダー