Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Twentieth Century Economics Of Child-Rearing In Japan, Michele Gibney

Michele Gibney

In order to explain the falling Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Japan, it is necessary to look at the social factors affecting women and raising children in Japan. By examining historical factors surrounding women in Japan—their education, their presence in the workforce, and the cultural stigmas attached to their stereotypical representation—I will attempt to describe the deteriorating TFR in Japan as an economic problem with political and social repercussions. In conclusion I will also try to provide a prognosis and a recommendation for a solution.

Traditional Tropes And Familial Incest In Banana Yoshimoto’S Kitchen, Michele Gibney

Michele Gibney

Kitchen, written in 1983, by Banana Yoshimoto, contains one novella and one short story. The novella is entitled Kitchen and the short story which follows it is called Moonlight Shadow. In Moonlight Shadow, the structure of a Japanese Noh drama enfolds, wherein the ultimate end of the main character is to live on in a semi-incestuous relationship with her dead boyfriend’s brother. In Kitchen, the images that one is assailed by are those of desire coexisting with food, and love contingent on incest. The idea of food as a comfort conflates into that of a woman as comforting.

These two …

Ono No Komachi: Love And Desire, Michele Gibney

Michele Gibney

The poetry of Ono no Komachi can be read in many lights. The two ways in which I feel its message and context can be best appreciated are through feminine independence and masculine subjection. Ono no Komachi wrote poetry that was evocative of the feminine ideal of longing for a male, but she also wrote poetry which denigrated the need for a woman to rely on a male. Through a self-critical reader analysis of some of her poems, I will show that Komachi’s poetry can be read as comprising a longing for the world of men, and men in particular, …