こころは踊る : アジア系アメリカ文学と狂気

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There seems to be several "mad women" in Asian American Literature. The most telling character is Emiko in Wakako Yamauchi's play entitled "And the Soul Shall Dance" based on her own short story. In October 2001, Teoriza theater put this play on the stage for the first time in Japan and Yamauchi and director Mako Iwamatsu came to Tokyo. On that occasion The Center for the Pacific and American Studies of the University of Tokyo had a symposium on Asian-American Culture in the United States. Here I would like to rethink her play and focus on Emiko's madness from the comparative point of view of the United States and the Japan she had left behind. As the title of her anthology Songs My Mother Taught Me well illustrates in Yamauchi's literary works, songs play an important part. In this play Emiko sings the Japanese song "Kokoro ga odoru (And the Soul Shall Dance)," and it always reminds her of her happier life inthe city of Tokyo in 1920's Red lips Press against the glass Drink the green wine And the soul shall dance She might have been one of those "moga"(modern girls) who emerged in the Japanese urban streets of Ginza. They loved freer city life and enjoyed dancing and drinking liquor. When she decided to marry a man who was her sister's ex-husband and was living in the United States, she may have dreamed a romantic, western modern life there. But the life in America turned out to be miserable Mr. Oka, her husband, was severely demanding and she suffered beatings. He was jealous of her ex-lover in Japan and they often quarreled violently. In short, to her, the life in the desert of Southern California seemed intolerably patriarchal. Ironically enough, now Emiko's only dream was to leave this country of liberty and come back to old Japan. But this is completely different from most Issei's dream of coming home after they would have succeeded. Oka sent for his daughter from Japan and they began to live together happily and in turn isolating Emiko from the family. As he spent Emiko's money she had saved in order to come back to Japan she lost all hope. By and by she looked at her neighbors with vacant eyes. Her extreme solitude might have driven her mad. Near the end of the play Emiko dances wearing her beautiful kimono and sings "And The Soul shall dance." When she sensed Masako's presense, she dropped the branch of sage and went off Masako picked up the branch and looked off to the point where Emiko disappeared. This act of succession shows Wakako Yamaushi's resolve as a Nisei writer to take over Japanese American Women's hardship, agony and sexuality.

こころは踊る : アジア系アメリカ文学と狂気

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