Table Of ContentTrauma, Dissociation and Re-enactment in
Japanese Literature and Film
Japanese literature and film have frequently been approached using lenses
suchaslanguage,genreandideology.Yet,despiteasuccessionofmajorsocial
traumas that have marked, and in many ways shaped and defined much of
modern Japan, Japanese fiction and cinema have not often been examined
psychoanalytically.
Inthis book,DavidStahlconducts in-depthreadingsand interpretationsof
a setof Japanese novelsandfilm. By introducing themethodologyof trauma/
PTSD studies, Stahl seeks to provide abetter understanding of the insights of
Japanese writers and directors into their societies, cultures and histories. In
particular, by building on the work of practitioner-theoreticians, such as
Pierre Janet and Judith Herman, Stahl analyses a number of key texts,
including Kawabata Yasunari’s Sleeping Beauties (1961), Enchi Fumiko’s
Female Masks (1958) and Imamura Sho-hei’s Vengeance is Mine (1979).
Consequently, through using concepts of social trauma, dissociation, failed
mourning, revenge and narrative memory, this book sheds new light on the
psychologicalaftereffectsandtransgenerationallegaciesoftraumadepictedin
Japanese works.
Trauma, Dissociation and Re-enactment in Japanese Literature and Film
will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Literature and
Cinema, as well as those interested in Japanese History and Trauma Studies.
David C. Stahl is Professor of Japanese Literature and Cinema at Bin-
ghamton University. His research interests are trauma/PTSD studies and
artistic representation of social trauma and its aftereffects.
Routledge Contemporary Japan Series
For a full list of available titles please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Rou
tledge-Contemporary-Japan-Series/book-series/SE0002.
Fukushima and the Arts in Japan
Negotiating Disaster
Edited by Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt
Social Inequality in Post-Growth Japan
Transformation During Economic and Demographic Stagnation
Edited by David Chiavacci and Carola Hommerich
The End of Cool Japan
Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture
Edited by Mark McLelland
Regional Administration in Japan
Departure from Uniformity
Shunsuke Kimura
Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century
Consuming the Past
Katsuyuki Hidaka
Intercultural Communication in Japan
Theorizing Homogenizing Discourse
Edited by Satoshi Toyosaki and Shinsuke Eguchi
Local Politics and National Policy
Multi-level Conflicts in Japan and Beyond
Ken Victor Leonard Hijino
Trauma, Dissociation and Re-enactment in Japanese Literature and Film
David C. Stahl
Rethinking Japanese Studies: Eurocentrism and the Asia-Pacific Region
Edited by Kaori Okano and Yoshio Sugimoto
Trauma, Dissociation and
Re-enactment in Japanese
Literature and Film
David C. Stahl
K ~~o~;J~n~~~up
ORKYOR LLONODONNLODNDOONN
Y
LONDONANDNEWYORK
Firstpublished2018
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2018DavidC.Stahl
TherightofDavidC.Stahltobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyhim/herinaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,
DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin
anyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting
fromthepublishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor
registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanation
withoutintenttoinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Acatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenrequested
ISBN:978-1-138-73325-1(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-18770-9(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Trauma/PTSD studies theory 11
2 Kawabata Yasunari’s Thousand Cranes 28
3 Enchi Fumiko’s Female Masks 89
4 Kawabata Yasunari’s Sleeping Beauties 141
5 Imamura Sho-hei’s Vengeance is Mine 185
Conclusion 219
Index 225
Acknowledgements
This book, and a forthcoming companionvolume, havebeen in theworks for
overadozenyearsnow,andneitherthey,normyfirstbookonO-okaSho-heiwould
have been possible without the instruction, support, challenging, collaboration,
and encouragement of Keiko Mochizuki and Wilbur Fridell at UC Santa
Barbara, Robert Epp, Tom Suzuki and William LeFleur at UCLA, Edwin
McClellan, Edward Kamens, Hugh Stimson, and Cathy Caruth at Yale,
Iguchi Tokio and Kawashima Itaru at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and
colleagues and friends such as Mike Rich, Susanna Fessler, Angela Yiu,
Dennis Washburn, Stephen Snyder, Richard Torrance, Alan Tansman, Philip
Gabriel,CarolGluck,DougSlaymaker,SteveRabson,BillWaldron,TomMoran,
Neil Waters,LegerGrindon,GuntramHerb,NickKaldis,MikePettid,Rumiko
Sode, Roberta Strippoli, John Chaffee, Mark Williams, Rachael Hutchinson,
Leith Morton, Patricia Welch, Karen Thornber, Kyle Ikeda, and Meera Lee.
Institutionally, I am deeply thankful to Binghamton University for its gen-
erosity in granting the sabbaticals and research leaves I utilized to devote
sustained attention to this book project, as well as the friendly, informative,
and helpful staffs at the Binghamton, Cornell, and Yale university libraries.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express gratitude and appre-
ciation to my graduate and undergraduate students over the years who not
only assisted me in developing, testing, and refining the trauma/PTSD meth-
odology and readings of the specific Japanese novels and films I teach reg-
ularly, but also showed me how effective this interpretive framework can be
for analyzing and interpreting other traumatic artistic narratives.
In addition, all of the people at Routledge with whom I have had the
pleasure of working have been truly wonderful, and I am especially indebted
to Asian Studies Publisher Stephanie Rogers, her new Editorial Assistant,
Georgina Bishop, the anonymous reviewers of my book proposals and
manuscript who provided me with such valuable comments and constructive
criticism, my copy-editor Felicity Watts, and many others who helped to
bringthisbookthroughtocompletion.IalsowishtothankMichelleDickson
atTaylorand Francis for arranging permission toreusematerialinChapter5
that originally appeared in Japan Forum, and Carmen Baumschlager of the
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere for her kindness and assistance in helping
Acknowledgements vii
me secure permission to reproduce a detail of Gustav Klimt’s Girlfriends
(Water Serpents I) on the book’s cover.
I would also like to express my profound and enduring gratitude and
indebtedness to Irene, my beloved wife of thirty years who supported and
bore with me as I spent long days, months, and years absorbed in reading,
thinking, and writing, our son Dan and daughter Heidi who have brought
and continue to bring usso much joyand happiness,and ourextendedfamily
and friends both living and departed who have enriched our lives immen-
sely and patiently talkedwith me through the years about Japanese literature
and film,traumaandPTSD,warandatrocity.Inclosing,Iwouldliketoexpress
specialappreciationformylatemother,Mona,whosupportedandencouraged
me every step of the way from the beginning.
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
Japanese literature and film have frequently been approached in terms of his-
tory,language,genre,style,aesthetics,school/movement,tradition,modernity,
postmodernity, identity, gender, and ideology, but they have only rarely been
examined psychoanalytically in terms of trauma/PTSD studies.1 Given the
succession of traumas that have marked, and in important ways shaped and
defined much of Japanese history and experience over the last 150 years, this
should give us pause. How can we account for such critical neglect? What
effect does it have on our ability to understand and appreciate Japanese lit-
erature and film in general, and Japanese writers’ and directors’ insights
into—and critiques of—their societies, cultures, histories, and politics in
particular?
Skepticismandresistancetowardpsychoanalyticapproachestounderstanding
and appreciating Japanese literature and film are traceable to long-standing
institutional and disciplinary bias. While some assume it to be illegitimate to
utilize these particular “western” interpretive frameworks to analyze “east-
ern” phenomena, little objection is raised concerning the application ofother
such theories (i.e., Marxist, Foucauldian). Scholars inclined to exclude or
marginalize psychoanalytical approaches are apt to overlook the fact that
exposureto,studyof,andstrugglessurroundingwesterntheories,institutions,and
practices—including psychoanalysis—are inseparable from the modernization
process itself.2
Meera Lee and Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto have drawn special attention to these
critical matters and their problematic consequences. According to the former:
Since the mid-1980s, many theorists, philosophers, and practitioners in
Europe and North America have attempted to integrate psychoanalytic
theory into colonial studies and social theory … Nevertheless, we have
not seen a serious importation into studies of East Asia as of yet …
Because psychoanalysis was invented by Europeans does not limit its
application to a particular people … This implicates the underlying eth-
nocentric claim that psychoanalytic theory may not be pertinent to the
study of Asian culture—a claim that unconsciously reproduces the divi-
sion between East and West within the very institutions that have been
