Article

The Ideal of Self-Sacrificing Women in Japanese Culture: The Wives in Ozu and Mizoguchi's Films

Many different social concepts that can be seen in Japanese literature, for example, risshin shusse (rising in the world), giri (obligation) and ninj? (personal feelings). In addition to the ideas of risshin shusse, giri and ninj?, there is a social ideal that is frequently noticeable and reoccurring in Japanese literature. That ideal is that a woman should be self-sacrificing. In this paper, two main film works will be analyzed to demonstrate and examine views on self-sacrifice by Japanese women. Those two works are Ukigusa monogatari (A Story of Floating Weeds, 1932) and Ugetsu (Tales of Moonlight and Rain, 1953). These films are set in the Edo period (1600-1868) and the Sh?wa period (1926-1989) respectively. [Ugetsu's periodization is problematic: the film mainly borrows from a story from Ueda Akinari's original Ugetsu monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain) that is set in the Sengoku Period (1467-1573), the period leading up to the Edo Period, but I read both the film and its source material as being representative of the Edo Period itself, when Akinari wrote the source work.] The films of Ukigusa monogatari and Ugetsu were both completed in the Sh?wa period and both of these works noticeably deal with self-sacrifice from the primary wife characters. Whether the question of self-sacrifice was socially obligated or voluntarily based is a question that I will pursue; in-depth exchanges in dialogue will be examined in order to support the hypothesis. Women's power within society will be also investigated to further clarify the concept of self-sacrifice by Japanese women.

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