For Monday, let's move into the potentially rich and controversial topic of gender in 1Q84.
There doesn't appear to be much discussion of this issue in Murakami, which is perhaps surprising. But see the article posted for a good start.
Consider the novel in light of Feminist and related critical perspectives on gender:
Aomame--feminist heroine, or post-feminist cliche figure as rendered by postmodern male fantasy?
Aomame--gay/queer aspects of her story?
Fuka-Eri--beyond conventional gender, extremely "queer"? Or a hyper male-fantasy, especially in light of the alliance with Tengo?
Gender roles in the postwar and more recent contemporary Japan context? Is 1Q84 confirming mainstream roles, questioning, challenging?
Gender in 1Q84 in relation to gender in Anime? This topic has been much discussed and you will easily find commentary on it, so it may be a good line of approach to Murakami.
Gender in relation to specific Japanese aesthetics, narrative forms, and character types--Ome, and so on?
Aomame can be categorized as a feminist heroine primarily for being an upstanding figure who is strongly opposed to violent abuse against women. This stems largely from the tragic suicide of her close childhood friend Yasuda Kyoko, who took her life due to the overbearing torment of her husband. Aomame despises such men who can get away with such crimes without prosecution and she "avenges" the women hurt by the corrupt powerful men by seducing and killing them. She is a vigilante of battered broken women. Gay aspects of Aomame's story go back to her teenage experiences with Kyoko and continue to when she meets Ayumi. Although she does not identify as a Lesbian, Aomame feels a powerful sense of pleasure in her intimate experiences with the same sex while she does enjoy sex with men. It is her lesbian experiences which hone her pride, nature, and character as a woman and she also finds companionship in her relationships with the women she bonds with. Fuka-Eri is a hyper male-fantasy in light of the alliance with Tengo. She is a character who is inciting in an unusual mysterious way which is not common for a girl of her age. Even Tengo at times is curious as to what she is thinking and who she is. She is attractive to Tengo in that way and her very reticent composure and apathetic viewpoint is what makes her a figure of male imagination. In relation to Anime, gender in "1Q84" is very sensual and in comparison to Tamaki SaitÅ's Otako book "Beautiful Fighting Girl" the "perverse desires, taking one another as their primary audience for their performances of their strong attraction to the girl-warrior heroines of their favorite comics and animated films (Moon 149). Also, the act of "masturbation in conjunction with reading manga, watching an anime, or playing a video game . . ." (Moon 150) coincides with gender in Murakami's novel is central in the sexual desires particularly of Aomame and Tengo. Gender in Michael Moon's article on Otaku for queer and media theory is very stylized and while very kinky in their 'fantastical' sexual world Otaku as "1Q84" has "perfectly respectable members of the opposite sex as their partners" (Moon 150)
ReplyDeleteMoon, Michael. "Otaku For Queer Theory And Media Theory." Criticism 55.1 (2013): 147-154. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
http://ezproxy.stevenson.edu:2075/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=d16960c2-3fad-44ba-af24-015342774531%40sessionmgr4004&hid=4211
ReplyDelete