| This is a study of the first forty-one chapters of the late tenth and early eleventh-century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu's Genji Monogatari. The title indicates that the tale is about one who has a surname (Gen) and is therefore disqualified from ruling the land. This information is emblematic of dichotomies sustained throughout the work: between desire and fact, between myth and fiction, and between that which is sacred and that which is profane.;These matters are examined through discussions of five heroines, on the premise that the characters are at once vividly realized individuals and points of juncture of the various threads of logic constituting the dense weave of this work. The heroines define each other and the hero, who is both the controlling and the controlled center of the work.;Chapter 1 concerns Fujitsubo, Lady Rokujo, and the Lady of Akashi. Fujitsubo affords the occasion for discussions of the sacred and the profane, erotic transgression and linearity in fiction, as well as origins, authenticity, and substitution.;The activities of Lady Rokujo's disembodied spirit have traditionally been interpreted as the expression of erotic discontent, but erotic and political sentiments serve as mutual metaphors. The Lady of Akashi, the daughter of a provincial governor, raises the issue of social class.;Chapter 2 is devoted to Tamakazura, a secondary heroine belonging to a minor branch of the tale--the profane narrative that exposes the sacred by antithesis.;Chapter 3 concerns Murasaki who, as the incarnation of woman as substitute, gives compelling expression to the question of identity.;The hero becomes the center of attention in the Epilogue, dealing with the forty-first chapter of the work. Murasaki's death in the previous chapter constitutes a decisive rupture. Here, the closural effects of the chapter's poetic structure are examined. |
