Image of mother in Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s Hahakoi stories

• Main Author: Jeon, Miseli
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4740

The aim of this thesis is to reveal the transformation that takes place in Jun'ichoro Tanizaki's aestheticism by examining the maternal images in his hahakoi novels: "Longing for Mother" (Haha o kouru ki), "Captain Shigemoto's Mother" (Shosho Shigemoto no haha), and "The Bridge of Dreams" (Yume no ukihashi). The link between the maternal images and Tanizaki's aestheticism can be found in his artistic manifesto "In Praise of Shadows" (In'ei raisan). The aesthetic ideals and prerequisites set out in "Praise" are the very qualities possessed by Tanizaki's mother characters. The common qualities among these mothers do not constitute the main purpose of the thesis. Rather, it is in their differences, which are instrumental in demonstrating the process of evolution occurring in the author's aesthetic beliefs and principles, that my purpose is to be found. In order to discover these differences, the relationship between the protagonist and his mother and the protagonist's view of his mother, rather than the image of the mother in isolation, are explored. It is postulated that Tanizaki endeavoured throughout his career to establish a relationship between his art of fictional narrative and life/reality in a fashion that will satisfy him both as an artist and a man. This effort is vividly displayed in the confrontation between the protagonist's split selves: reason (reality) and instinct (fantasy). Tanizaki begins with the question of morality in art and focuses on the controversial issue of the incest taboo. In the early stage of his career, Tanizaki proclaimed the extreme aesthetic doctrines such as "art for art's sake" and "art instead of life." In order to realize this belief in its full force, Tanizaki subverts and revises his own aesthetic ideals. Finally in "Bridge," he successfully actualizes his fantasy, the unlimited expansion of imagination, and the protagonist obtains a complete freedom from moral bounds, but not without dreadful consequences. Unsatisfied with the result of the realized fantasy, Tanizaki undertakes another re-evaluation of his aestheticism and accepts both fantasy and reality as vital and legitimate realms or spheres for his art. He comes to a revelation that the mission of the writer is hot to choose one over the other, but to embrace both realms and stimulate the interplay between them. Perhaps, his aesthetic belief then is not so much "art for art's sake", but "both art and life."