Body Politics and the Fictional Double

[5] Myths and Monsters: The Female Body as the Site for Political Agendas

myths and monsters 71 [5] myths and monsters: the female body as the site for political agendasS. YUMIKO HULVEY Recently I began noticing images of the yamauba (mountain Furies) lurking in the narratives of several Japanese women writers. In texts by Enchi Fumiko (1905–86), Ōba Minako (1930–), Kurahashi Yumiko (1935–), and Tsushima Yūko (1947–),1 the yamauba topos is appropriated to deal with problematic issues such as identity, sexuality, and the traditional role of women in modern society. Enchi’s “Haru no Uta” (“Spring Song,” 1971) and Saimu (Colored Mist, 1975), among others, reflect images of women who “drain” the life force from the men with whom they have had sex and suggest men as victims of supernatural, empowered women in the yamauba tradition. Ōba’s “The Smile of the Mountain Witch” (“Yamauba no Bishō,” 1976) and “Candlefish” (“Rōsuku Uo,” 1986) offer updated versions of the yamauba topos from an insider’s point of view, rendering a sympathetic feminist revision of the female demon of the past. Kurahashi’s “The Long Passage of Dreams” (“Nagai Yumeji,” 1968) and “Spring Night Dreams” (“Haru no Yo no Yume,” 1989) suggest that women are capable of becoming demons, merging dream and reality, as women seeking sexual satisfaction talk of devouring and ravaging men as if they were modern reincarna- S. Yumiko Hulvey 72 tions of yamauba. Tsushima’s “Maboroshi” (“Illusions”) and “Yume no Michi” (“Path of Dreams”) offer images of women running through the mountains, mountain paths leading to seemingly uninhabited mountain huts, mothers who inadvertently hurt their children, and aging women who transform into yamauba simply by growing old. A number of questions come to mind: Why would these women writers choose to incorporate such a negative image of a man-eating female monster into their texts, and after having done so, what do these writers hope to achieve by placing the yamauba in their narratives? In the course of trying to refine the image of the yamauba, I began to sense that the yamauba may have some mysterious relationship to powerful female archetypes from ancient stories or myths. Perhaps the yamauba of traditional Japanese folk tales harkens back to female prototypes in ancient creation myths that impart a sense of empowerment to women. Maybe by choosing to write about the challenge of living as women in patriarchal society, women writers are able to exorcise or alleviate their feelings of frustration. Why would most of these writers choose to promote negative images of women, if not to express their ambivalence or anger at having to cope with living in patriarchal society? In this chapter, I do not seek the modern version of the yamauba found in the texts of modern female authors. Here, I present two creation myths, the Japanese and the great mother, as prototypes from which a cycle of folk tales about the yamauba evolved and developed. I argue that the creation myths provide inspiration for the yamauba topos by introducing female prototypes that give birth later to a variety of female demons. I propose that the Japanese creation myth, which posits the female body as the site of defilement and pollution, was a ploy adopted by patriarchy to associate females with negative attributes in order to gain control of property and inheritance rights that were originally under the jurisdiction of females.2 I refer to studies of the great mother creation myth to suggest the privileged position, based on their procreative ability, that was occupied by females in prehistoric times and that was usurped later by patriarchy. Finally , I extrapolate reasons why some modern women writers choose this topos as a vehicle for literary expression. Studies of the yamauba traditionally begin with medieval short stories, then proceed to medieval Nō dramas with a more literary flair, and conclude with folk tales collected from all over Japan at the turn of the twentieth century. The folklore studies I have read thus far do not refer to myths as the source or inspiration of the yamauba topos nor identify her nature as the two-faced “terrible mother,” sometimes a nurturer and other times myths and monsters 73 a destroyer. Only when I delved into the study of myth did I discover the work of Yoshida Atsuhiko, who locates the true origin of the yamauba topos in the creation myths of the Japanese and the great mother. To my knowledge, no study in English focuses...