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Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Great Mirror Of Motherly Love: Maternal Fantasy, Mystic Mothers, And Reflected Selves In Modern And Contemporary Japanese Fiction, Jessica E. Legare
Great Mirror Of Motherly Love: Maternal Fantasy, Mystic Mothers, And Reflected Selves In Modern And Contemporary Japanese Fiction, Jessica E. Legare
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Fantasy and mysticism often serve as key elements in escapist literature—constructing stories that move protagonists beyond the furthest reaches of the real, the familiar and the human. Yet, the otherworldly can also bring the protagonist within reach of the familiar if we consider the representations of mothering in the following Japanese narratives: Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s “Longing for Mother” (1919), Izumi Kyōka’s “The Holy Man of Mount Kōya” (1900), Takahashi Takako’s “Doll Love” (1976), and Ono Masatsugu’s “Prayers from Nine Years Ago” (2014). Through their depictions based on supernatural and spiritual tropes, mystical-mother figures become metaphorical mirrors meant to reflect the protagonists’ …