This semester, I taught a class about "Demon Women in Japanese Literature." The readings were fairly diverse, as were the students. The one thing that surprised me is how, in their written responses, almost everyone admitted to a personal connection with one of the stories. Either their parents were evil, or a romantic partner was evil, or they had a frenemy who did them dirty. When a story resonated with them on a personal level, they tended to blame the writer for not being sensitive.
On one hand, I don't think Fumiko Enchi cared about misbehavior on TikTok when she was writing in postwar Japan in 1954. On the other hand, I remember what it felt like to be young and have everything feel so raw. On the third hand growing directly from my bile-choked liver, I still can't help but wonder why the first impulse is to get angry at the writer.
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This semester, I taught a class about "Demon Women in Japanese Literature." The readings were fairly diverse, as were the students. The one thing that surprised me is how, in their written responses, almost everyone admitted to a personal connection with one of the stories. Either their parents were evil, or a romantic partner was evil, or they had a frenemy who did them dirty. When a story resonated with them on a personal level, they tended to blame the writer for not being sensitive.
On one hand, I don't think Fumiko Enchi cared about misbehavior on TikTok when she was writing in postwar Japan in 1954. On the other hand, I remember what it felt like to be young and have everything feel so raw. On the third hand growing directly from my bile-choked liver, I still can't help but wonder why the first impulse is to get angry at the writer.