「少女」の視点からみる記憶の物語
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概要
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One of the peculiarities in the works by Japanese-American women writers is that there are a lot of the narratives from the view of Japanese-American girls. They narrate their family, especially Issei (the first generation of Japanese-American immigrants) women in "Seventeen Syllables" written by Hisaye Yamamoto, and "Songs My Mother Taught Me" and "And the Soul Shall Dance" written by Wakako Yamauchi. In this paper, we will analyze the girl's narratives from two aspects. One is to focus on the social, cultural and autobiographical background of Yamamoto and Yamauchi, and we will consider the inevitability of their use of girl's narratives. The other is to read their narratives as the stories of memories, and we will read girl's narratives as the device to recall the lost places and times before World War II. Japanese American community is collapsed by the incident of their evacuation, and the evacuation experience brings the psychological trauma to all Japanese Americans including Yamamoto and Yamauchi. In their stories, they describe the places and times lost by the evacuation. The lost place and time matches where they spent in girlhood and when they were girls. As indicating in Yamauchi's words, their reason to write is to recall the lost voices of marginalized Japanese Americans, especially of subordinate Japanese American women. The stories of Japanese American community clearly make clear the social position of repressed Japanese women. The closed community from outside means that Japanese women's restriction in their activities. For example, Mrs. Kato in "Songs My Mother Taught Me" wants to go back to homeland; however the strong restriction by the closed Japanese American small town does not allow her to go even outside. In the case of Mrs. Oka in "And the Soul Shall Dance," the place means prison for her because she is deviated from the Japanese norm, but she tries to fight with such conservative surroundings by the self-expression of dancing and singing. The narratives of the memories from girls' view have the power to overthrow the stereotyped images of Japanese-American women like well-behaved, obedient, and persevering constructed by the social norm of American mainstream. Then we can say that the girls' narratives have brought new light to bear the history of Japanese-American women ignored by and hidden in the social of majority.
- 福岡女子大学の論文
- 2006-02-28