Rewriting Japanese women: Survivors, escapees, and defeatists in the fiction of Banana Yoshimoto

In recent history Japanese society has become increasingly sensitive to issues of gender equality. Yet the reality of women's everyday lives remains characterized by continual struggle with deep-rooted gender biases. Among contemporary Japanese writers who depict women's limited social roles, popular novelist "Banana" Yoshimoto has gained a wide audience both at home and internationally. While some scholars note the hopefulness Yoshimoto's fiction engenders, an alternative interpretation of her resigned, escapist, and defeatist characters presents a less promising outlook. This study investigates Yoshimoto's postmodern shift from earlier genres. It shows that the commoditized world her fiction reflects is not only the result of Japan's sudden capitalist development but also entrenched in Japanese social ideology, making this social reality more difficult to change. The study's goal is to demonstrate that Yoshimoto's depiction of society reveals a widespread crisis not limited to Japan but inherent in the entire postmodern world.