Рубрика: Лингвокультурология
УДК: 808.2

WOMEN’S “PROPER STATION” IN JAPAN AS REFLECTED
IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE

ОТРАЖЕНИЕ «ПОДОБАЮЩЕГО МЕСТА ЖЕНЩИНЫ» В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ
 ЯПОНСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ

Богомолова Анастасия Алексеевна,
бакалавр 2 курса, кафедра дизайна и технологий
Владивостокский государственный университет экономики и сервиса
Россия. Владивосток
E-mail: bogomolova-anastasia@mail.ru; tel.: +79046216855
ул. Гоголя, 41, г. Владивосток, Приморский край, Россия, 690014

Леонтьева Тамара Ивановна,
канд. пед. наук, доцент, кафедра межкультурных коммуникаций и переводоведения
Владивостокский государственный университет экономики и сервиса
Россия. Владивосток

E-mail: tamara.leonteva@vvsu.ru; тел.: +79147331020
ул. Гоголя, 41, г. Владивосток, Приморский край, Россия, 690014

Цель данной статьи состоит в ознакомлении читателя с традиционной и современной культурой японцев, в выявлении «подобающего места» женщины в современной Японии. Материалом исследования послужили художественные произведения современных японских писателей, отражающих своеобразие японской культуры, японского менталитета, нового взгляда японцев на истинное место женщины в одной из  самых цивилизованных стран на Земле, каковой является их родина. Метод лингвокультурного анализа литературных текстов позволил сделать вывод о полной самореализации японских женщин в современном мире.
Ключевые слова и словосочетания: концепция «подобающего места», неписаные правила, лингво-культурный анализ, самореализация, влияние Запада. 

WOMEN’S “PROPER STATION” IN JAPAN AS REFLECTED
IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE

Bogomolova Anastasia Alekseevna,
Bachelor of the 2nd year, department of design and technology
Vladivostok state university of economics and service
Russia. Vladivostok

Leontieva Tamara Ivanovna, 
PhD, assistant professor, department of cross-cultural communications and translation
Vladivostok state university of economics and service
Russia. Vladivostok

The goal of this article is to acquaint the reader with traditional as well as modern Japanese culture, to find out “the proper station” of women in modern Japan. The research is based on the works of fiction written by modern Japanese authors; their works reflect the uniqueness of Japanese culture, the singularity of Japanese mentality, and provide a different view of the real place of women in one of the most civilized countries in the world. By method of linguo-cultural analysis of works of fiction the conclusion was made that modern women are far from being dependent on men, they are equal to them in all spheres.
Keywords: the concept of the “proper station”, tacit rules, linguo-cultural analysis, self-actualization, Western influence.

WOMEN’S “PROPER STATION” IN JAPAN AS REFLECTED
IN MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE

The basic goal of this article is to study the stereotype about the roles of men and women in Japanese community and try to find out the real picture of women’s “proper station” in today’s Japan. To achieve this goal the following objectives were to be solved: a) to survey the historical roots of the Japanese attitude towards women; b) to find proofs of a new generation of women at the joint of the ХХ-XXI centuries in Japan; c) to conduct linguo-cultural analysis of literary extracts with the view of making right conclusions about the changing “proper station” of women in modern Japan. The authors of the article put forward a hypothesis about Japanese women: Since the world is changing today, and women in European countries and the two Americas as well as in the Russian Federation are taking power in their own hands, the Japanese women also participate in this process. Our studies base on the material offered in works of fiction, as literature mirrors real life and draws a true-to-fact picture of reality. The methodology of the analysis follows the teachings of M.M. Bakhtin, I.V. Arnold, R. Benedict, S.G. Ter-Minasova and others.
Japanese culture centers around the conception of the “proper station”, it means that every person should occupy a certain place in society, and each person should realise his/her place. The motto of the Japanese is “there’s a place for everything”; this motto actually establishes the moral law and the absolute constant law of family life. A Japanese person cannot fancy his life without strict subordination or hierarchy; it is especially bright in the family. At the time of samurais, the latter put women in their “proper place” – two steps behind the husband. They also composed a teaching of “three forms of obedience” – to the father, to the husband and the elder son [4, p.117-118].
There are certain rules in the Japanese family based on a deep respect of the elderly members of the family. Every member in the family has a clearly specified place and something like a “title” (or “rank”). Female members of the family use highly polite phrases when they address the males, even if those males are their younger brothers or nephews. According to Ruth Benedict, an American author who tries to explain how a young mother, who carries her baby on her back, has to bow to others and the baby receives the first lessons of esteem for older people. As can be seen, a child learns this rule not because of moral teaching but from life itself. “Know your place”; “behave yourself”; “do what you must” – these are the unwritten rules that have regulated the life of the Japanese since the early ages [6, p.49]. 
However, the second half of the XX and the XXI century have seen some changes in the position of women in Japan, this fact is reflected in modern Japanese literature. The first author who has changed our view of today’s woman in Japan is the author Yasushi Inoue, the author of a world-known novelette “The Hunting Gun” [8]. It should be said that Japanese literature after WWII was under Western influence as the theorist of literature Donald Keene points out [7], and the writers of Japan became more open to describe adultery. The Japanese young people travelled to European countries, a lot of them studied at universities there, watched melodramatic films with bed scenes – and that caused Japanese writers to expose transparent and outspoken truth of life to this new nation in their literary works.
Of great importance for us in the novelette, “The Hunting Gun” is to see quite a different behavior of Japanese women. They not only disregard the tacit rules of female behavior they simply violate them. Thus, the wife of the main character of the story, Midori by name, in an answer to her husband’s adultery finds ever-new lovers for herself – a thing that was impossible a century or even half a century ago. Why, would you ask? The answer is as follows: Because today women in Japan realise that they are equal to men in their rights, the whole world lives like that! Let us quote the text: “I dashed letters to other men, men towards whom I felt no such diffidence” [8, p.49]. Then the woman confessed that she had many lovers. Another quotation: “My name turned up in tabloid gossip columns, causing you some degree of inconvenience” [8, p.51]. In addition, to round it all up, I should say that a Japanese woman feels quite independent in the XX century; she offers a divorce! An unprecedented thing before! That is what she writes to her husband: “Does it not strike you that it would be a profound relief to put an end to our relationship”? [8, p.51]
Our method of analysis is the study of lexical-semantic groups of words with the view to their expressive and emotional force [1, p.170]. This method was chosen because it is the first step in the detailed study of a literary work. In the course of our cultural, literary and linguistic analysis, syntactic structures were also given attention; the explanation of the reason for it is given further in the text of the article.
Let us pay attention to the choice of words and word combinations the young unhappily married woman uses in the letter to her husband:
 “I dashed letters to other men”; “tabloid gossip columns”; “some degree of inconvenience”; “a profound relief”; “put an end to our relationship”. 
She does not fear to start a conflict; these phrases speak about her resoluteness to part with the man who deceived her since the first day of their marriage and by this turned her into a liar. She condemns her husband and accuses him of breaking her hopes for a happy future. By this image Yasushi Inoue proves the fact that modern women are not only resolute in choosing partners but are also rather calculating: “Here, briefly, is what I desire: our homes in Takarazuka and Yase” [8, p.52]. She also demands a huge sum of money from him and practically leaves him homeless and moneyless. The use of a very emotional word “desire” speaks about her great appetite; again, it is a new trait of Japanese wives unheard of before.
Now let us turn to a more modern writer, our contemporary Haruki Murakami; he is a postmodernist novelist and spokesperson for a new generation. In his latest semi-biographical book “Desire” [9] he presents a new type of young girls. On the pages of the story “The Second Bakery Attack”, the young man is portrayed as an irresolute fearful person while his wife is a real leader in an extreme situation. A few words about the plot: Once in his childhood the husband stole bread from a nearby bakery. Since that time, he has felt great hunger in the middle of the night, just the time when the robbery took place 10 years before. What was there to do?
Commonplace utterances in works of fiction are part of the reality created in this literary work, they are the events of a certain story, novel or any other secondary literary creation which processes primary lively situations, those occurring in real activity [2, p.466].
It is in this difficult situation that the young wife appears the master of the situation. She speaks resolutely and concisely: “Attack another bakery. Right away. Now. It’s the only way” [9, p.11]. In this utterance, we observe the militant word “Attack”, an order “Right away”, time restriction “Now” and the concluding phrase “It’s the only way” which does not leave him any chance to avoid this action. When analyzing the girl’s speech we also resort to syntactic analysis. We pay attention to the girl’s imperative utterances, which are especially important in the situation when the husband feels lost. Her domination here is expressed with the help of parcellation; this stylistic device conveys her moral and physical superiority. This line of behavior continues and becomes the red line of the story. The example that follows convinces of it since the story is written from the first person singular; it is the young man’s narrative: 
…She handed me the blanket-wrapped shotgun.
‘I’ve never fired a gun in my life,’ I protested.
‘You don’t have to fire it. Just hold it. Okay? Do as I say.’ [9, p.14]
As we see, the semantic net of military words continues to grow; it expands with the words “gun”, “shotgun”, and the verb “fire”. Their usage creates the atmosphere of danger and even horror. The wife supports this mood by the commanding tone “Do as I say.” 
This short conversation of the husband and wife demonstrates the change in the relations between men and women in Japanese society as works of fiction reflect real life [5, p.177-179]. 
Our research can be enriched with the most modern examples of female behavior taken from the book by Natsuo Kirino «Out» [10]. The leading female images of this provocative novel present independent nature, especially Masako and Yayoi who act vigorously and resolutely. The latter, a young married woman with two children did not agree to live with a man who betrayed her running after other women. She had suffered a lot from his rude behavior with her, from scandals and beatings. After a very hard blow from which she felt an unbearable pain, an idea occurred to her: «It was miserable to be living with such a man» [10, p.60]. It should be noted that unlike Russian women who can endure their husbands’ adultery and physical assault up to these days to save their face, a Japanese woman can no longer bear it. Yayoi appeared brave and even militant, she was thinking about her children fearing that they might follow their father’s example and turn into wild beasts as well. At the spur of the moment when she was in great danger she murdered her husband. She was maddened by the fact that he had lost all the money they had saved together at a gambling house playing cards and making presents to the woman he was after, by his sarcastic question “Can’t you be nice once in a while?” so she exploded. Let Natsuo Kirino have the floor: 
“At that moment her patience snapped. With lightning speed she slipped off her belt and wrapped it around his neck.
Kenji made choking sounds, trying to look around at her, but Yayoi pulled up and back, tightening the belt in one motion” [10, p. 61]. 
The irony of the situation is in the fact that Yayoi repeats the question of her husband in a transformed way (since her husband was no longer alive):  “Couldn’t you have been nice once in a while?” [10, p.62] where the past form of the modal verb “can”, and the perfect infinitive “have been” point to her realization of the relief she felt at last. We all agree that women are created to give life and not take it from humans; but we also admit that the heroine was saving her life and the life of her children from a monster. “She’d had no other choice”, says the author of the novel in her commentary [10, p.62]. 
The lexical-semantic group of words pertaining to Yayoi can be divided into two halves, the first reflects her pain and suffering, the second manifests her courage. Let us reproduce them: a conspicuous dark-blue bruise, she couldn’t breathe, her chest was convulsing; punch, a blow, hatred, a dark cloud (metaphor of “hatred”); burst out crying, another surge of pain, she screamed. When grouped together on a small patch of the text [10, p.56-59], they draw a depressing picture of married life, the emotional, expressive and evaluative components of the chosen words and word collocations are suggestive of the wretched life of a woman, utter hopelessness of her existence. Being a modern woman she decided to put an end to such existence, a revolutionary mood appeared in her. The author prepares the reader to her revenge gradually, so that the reader could sympathize with the suffering woman, we become witnesses of her growing self-actualization: It was miserable to be living with such a man; a glimmer of hope (about life without her cruel husband); a tide of loathing welled up inside her; It would be better if a man like this never came home, if she never had to see his face again; He’s got no right to go on living like this!
It may appear rather strange but according to V.V. Ovchinnikov, a married man in Japan can have extradiadic sex, on the one hand, or amuse himself on the side, on the other. And if a woman shows her jealousy, she will put herself in the pillory as an immoral woman [3, p.105-106]. But Yayoi is different. As can be seen, in order to describe Yayoi’s state of mind and her physical aversion for her husband, Natsuo Kirino resorts to highly emotional structural complexes [1, p.162-165] revealing her determination to get rid of the husband who moulded her life into hell. A shift from separate words like injury, pain, punch, and blow to full-member sentences reflecting the wife’s struggle for survival is quite logical as such deep feelings demand longer periods. Reading these complicated ideas we realize that modern women in Japan have acquired a new vision of their role in this life, they are not going to suffer from such nonentities as Yayoi’s husband was. Such a vision of Japanese women appeared as an answer to Western literary images of free-loving, independent women, and we can see the proof of our supposition (hypothesis) that women of Japan are quite different today, they are full of resoluteness to stand for their rights.
After reading modern Japanese literature we have come to the conclusion that ladies in Japan are no longer slaves of the concept “proper station”, they are real masters of their lives, and some of them are even taking state posts. A bright example of it is the Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike who was elected on 31 July, becoming the first woman in the post. She honestly won a competition and outflanked 19 men-rivals! 
The novelty of the research offered in this publication lies in the fact, that such an approach to the study of the concept “proper place” opens a wide road to analogous studies of the role of women in other Asian countries. Common and differentiating traits in women’s behavior can be discovered and widely discussed in scientific works. Besides, a comparative analysis of women’s attitude to their rights in Asian and European countries will demonstrate ever-new possibilities awaiting all women of the globe to realize their importance in this turbulently developing world.

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