82 pages • 2 hours read
Murasaki ShikibuThe Tale Of Genji
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Physical Beauty and Substance of Character
The social importance of maintaining and creating beauty—both physical appearance and artistic beauty—is an undercurrent in The Tale of Genji.
Regarding physical attractiveness, a character’s beauty is often conveyed as an external extension of innate merit, internal substance, and therefore worthy of the readers’ affections, as well. Part of Genji’s ability to rise above his low rank is due to his handsomeness in early life, from his very first months of life: “He [the Emperor] had the child brought in straightaway […] and he was astonished by his beauty” (5). The connection between good looks and higher quality of spirit is referenced several times throughout the book. The Kokiden Consort, after watching Genji dance at a celebration for the Emperor, enviously comments on Genji’s beauty as representation of a connection to the heavens: “With those looks of his, the gods above must covet him” (129).
The artistic beauty a person is able to bring into the world is also conveyed as a reflection of a person’s higher value. Demonstrated during several festivities in the story, such as Genji’s dancing in the above quote, the relationship between personal merit and talent in creating beauty is noted in many other everyday events, too. One such example is the conversation regarding choosing wives in Chapter 2, in which Chief Equerry recalls a lost love whose skill with dye and sewing helped rank her higher as an ideal wife (31).
The story also frequently features celebrations and festivities that include competitions surrounding art, such as “The Picture Contest” at the end of Chapter 17. Mostly characters of higher merit are those who are also repeatedly associated with physical beauty and/or artistic ability.
Love, Lust, and Sexual Power Dynamics
Almost all major plot points in The Tale of Genji are rooted in the sexual dynamics between men and women during the Heian period of Japan.
It can be argued a variation on this theme is Genji’s search for a lost parent, as expressed through romantic interaction (later termed an “Oedipus Complex” in modern psychology). Genji loses his mother at 3 years old, and the two major loves of his life bear a striking resemblance to her. In addition to their similarities to his lost mother, Genji shifts his attentions back and forth between multiple women despite being married, sometimes courting them simultaneously. Only after he is finally punished for one of these affairs and in exile at Suma does he finally begin to mature into understanding how to act as a non-sexualized, paternal figure with the younger females in his life.
Author Murasaki Shikibu was a woman writing fiction around the 11th century. As such, she was required to adhere to her culture’s social codes and sexual hierarchies in her storytelling, but she also had the chance to bring the perspectives of female characters to the forefront. Genji is a high-ranking male protagonist during the Heian period, thus his moral character is often protected by his status in the story, as well as defended by the narrative voice telling the story.
The narrator regularly describes Genji’s sensitivity, his regret at having hurt the women in his life, and his genuine emotional attachment to those he loves. While defending Genji’s intentions and actions, Shikibu is able to bring forth the experiences of women of her day, as secondary or neglected as those experiences may seem, when compared to the needs of the men in the book. By modern standards, the female characters of The Tale of Genji may seem to only exist for Genji’s pleasure or support, nothing more. Still, their perspectives are nonetheless the core of most of Chapters 1-17. Their sorrows, joys, disappointments, and views on their roles in the world are the center of the book, despite how Genji’s power and agency unfortunately shape their lives.
Even the political struggles in the book (such as the ambition of the Kokiden Consort to stop Genji ascending to power) are merged with sexual competition. For instance, she is motivated by political gain based in whether or not another woman wins the Emperor’s favor from her. Regardless, first Kiritsubo becomes the Emperor’s favorite over the Kokiden Consort, despite her low social rank. Second, Fujitsubo becomes the Emperor’s next favorite after Kiritsubo’s death, eventually elevated to Empress. Jealousy over these relationships drives the Kokiden Consort’s vengeance against Genji (Kiritsubo’s son), eventually encouraging her own son, Emperor Suzaku, to support exile of Genji later in his adult life. While a woman’s social success was almost purely dependent upon her marriage and/or sexual relationships, and therefore royal women could not succeed without sexual ties to powerful men, the Kokiden Consort’s actions are also conveyed as highly personal. In The Tale of Genji almost no major socioeconomic or political event is separate from acknowledged sexual motivations.
The Truths within Fiction and Poetry
When discussing “themes” from a work of literature as old as The Tale of Genji, it is important to acknowledge such art is likely not structured for the same purposes or through the same lens as modern (and particularly Western) readership now understands art. For instance, Shikibu may not have viewed elements of her story as themes or symbols in the way we understand them. Still, whether or not she conceived those repeated reflections of greater truths as akin to what readers now think of as “thematic,” she placed repeating images and concerns throughout her work to reflect the larger observations she wished to emphasize; that is, she may have used theme and symbol without proactively considering these craft elements as such.
The Prologue of the Royall Tyler translation is an excerpt from the twenty-fifth chapter of the text. The excerpt, which is a conversation between Genji and Tamakazura (Yugao’s daughter), is included in the Prologue here since the scene highlights the larger story’s respect for fiction-telling, one that views fiction as more than mere entertainment.
Though Genji is originally misinterpreted as mocking Tamakazura for her love of storytelling, he clarifies his argument with her, confirming he indeed does believe fiction functions to carry forward vital truths. Genji explains: “Not that tales accurately describe any particular person; rather, the telling begins when all those things the teller longs to have pass on to future generations…it is wrong always to dismiss what one finds in tales is false…” (1). Though lines of poetry are more prominent in the story, and poetry as an art form was considered more refined and serious than fiction, the narrator occasionally openly acknowledges she only knows a limited amount of information. Nonetheless, that still does not diminish the need to tell the tale.
In addition to this general defense of fiction as functional to society, the vital role of poetry (versus fiction) in daily life is also a key element of the story. Shikibu’s use of poems and lines of poetry throughout the plots is not only a reflection of Heian culture at the time;centuries later, the poetry in the book still implies the point that a person’s character and values can also be found in how they choose to communicate.
For instance, when Murasaki misses Genji during a prolonged absence, she hums the melody set to a Chinese poem, “when the tide is high.” The sentiments of the poem are footnoted in this abridged edition as meaning, “Is he seaweed on the shore, covered when the tide is high? I see him so little and miss him so much!” (140). Murasaki’s use of this line briefly embarrasses Genji in its earnestness. It also reminds both the reader and him of her young age (as she chooses to recite a poem through a song), and its contents illustrate her childlike reliance on his presence in her life. There are several lines of poetry quoted in every chapter, usually between Genji and his romantic interests, and their delivery—whether recited or original, as well as the handwriting used in their choice of poems—all work to give deeper insight into the specific dynamic of each particular relationship. The ongoing poetry choices between characters seems to implythe way a person uses language can reveal as much about that person as the contents of what is said.
