Of Lilies and Oden: a character analysis of Osei from Futabatei Shimei's Ukigumo
Note: this is just my admittedly rather biased interpretation of the story and I don’t have the full cultural context, either. I can't find any other articles taking this sort of stance or really talking about Osei, at all, though, which I think is a real shame since I think she's a really neat, unique character, happy despite not conforming to the wishes of the narrative she's confined in. So, I just wanted to ramble about her a bit.
After the previous feudal government was overthrown during the 1868 Meiji Restoration, Japanese society was upended in an instant – the former social hierarchy was destroyed and replaced by all sorts of new ideas flowing in from the West. The animanga series Gintama provides a good metaphor for this: it’s like, suddenly, aliens invade, bringing with them all sorts of crazy technology, and you have to just keep trying to live and somehow pay your rent amidst all this chaos.
Let’s zoom in on one particular guy struggling in this topsy-turvy world: an author and translator known by his penname, Futabatei Shimei. According to Marleigh Grayer Ryan’s 1967 combined biography of Futabatei and translation of his novel Ukigumo (“Drifting Clouds”), he deeply wanted to join the military since he was a child, but was rejected multiple times for having poor eyesight and being bad at math (14-5). Refusing to give up, he instead devoted himself to studying Russian, with hopes of becoming a spy against what he considered to be "the greatest threat to Japan's future" (19). This kind of had a different effect entirely, though: he ended up falling in love with Russian culture, especially its literature, and became a communist. Oops!
What he loved so much about Russian novels was their strong focus on characterization and social commentary, especially compared to Japanese books and even Japanese translations / localizations of Western novels at the time which were more often used as a vessel to teach the reader lessons on morality told through traditional forms of poetry, basically ignoring the character's psychology altogether (Ryan 38-9). Many Japanese authors at the time, such as Futabatei's friend and literary critic Tsubouchi Shōyō, believed that the Japanese language as it was then was ill-suited to adapting or otherwise imitating Western-style prose; namely, the written language and its various strict poetic forms were completely distinct from the common spoken language, which itself was not only broken up into numerous non-standardized local dialects but also changed depending on the social classes of the people involved in a conversation (66-7). To properly recreate a Western-style novel in Japanese, you'd basically have to invent a new style of writing altogether.
There was another layer of complications beyond purely stylistic incompatibilities, though: as Tsubouchi explains, regarding Futabatei's failed attempt to translate Turgenev's 1862 novel Fathers and Sons early on in his career, "The major difficulty was the absence of words which would evoke a Western woman" (Ryan 102). Women were expected to speak excessively deferentially and politely towards men, which would certainly make it difficult to render a self-described "argumentative" woman like Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova!
Still, despite these problems, Futabatei Shimei ended up publishing his master work, Ukigumo, considered "Japan's first modern novel," in three parts between 1887 and 1889. The plot is pretty simple, posing a love triangle as a metaphor, asking which guy will the modern Meiji educated woman choose: one who is heavily Western-influenced (to the point that he's become non-functional in Japanese society, like the Russian superfluous man) or the feudal image of the ideal man, charismatic and ass-kissing his way into a highly respected and well-paying government job? Her answer is… neither, apparently. The book ends abruptly with Osei, the presumed female love interest, not even being on speaking terms with either man and insisting that she never wants to get married.
Now, we should stop here and note one quick thing about Futabatei: he was an über-perfectionist who also really hated himself and everything he made. Like, he admits his penname comes from a time of peak stress and suicidal ideation when he was screaming internally at himself, kutabatte shimae (which loosely translates to "go to hell" and sounds basically the same as "Futabatei Shimei") (78-9). Eventually, in late 1889, shortly after Part Three of Ukigumo was released, he decided he just wasn't cut out for writing and took a government job, instead (97). As a result, we don't really know if the story is actually finished or if he just gave up part way through. Apparently, contemporary critics praised the story for its innovative open-ended conclusion, while later ones just viewed it as a cop out.
For the purposes of this essay, though, let's indulge in a little fantasy: what if the female love interest truly never chooses either of them, or any man at all?
First, let’s try to get to know our heroine a bit better. The narrator often dismisses Osei as "faddish," but she actually retains the same interests and convictions throughout the novel. For one thing, she is extremely proud of her education (to the point of being quite classist in the beginning of the story) and frequently talks about women's rights and advocates for equality between the sexes at every opportunity, particularly the idea that men and women should be allowed to interact socially without it being seen as inherently sexual (Ryan 215).
In addition to this, she is either oblivious to or outright rejects both guys' advances and eventually decides she never wants to get married at all, much to her mother's chagrin. For example, the story is written from (the aforementioned superfluous man) Bunzō's perspective with him being helplessly in love with Osei (his adoptive cousin) but never quite able to tell her. On one occasion, he comes close, asking her if maybe there's someone she cares about more than her family, with the hope that she'll say she loves him, too. Her response? “Oh, it’s not a person. It’s Truth," showcasing once again her dedication to education and rationality (Ryan 216). Also, after Bunzō reveals that he was fired from his job, Osei defends him against her mom, saying that it’s not like he's a different person now, he’s not “going to bite people" (243). Bunzō is so happy upon hearing this that he cries, believing that this must be evidence that she likes him back, but, again, she responds, “I’m just being logical” (243). It’s actually pretty funny; Bunzō is so lovesick that he takes anything she does as a sign of her love, while her vibe is much more #Destroying You with Facts and Logic.
It's the ending and the events directly leading up to it that really get me, though! Sorry for all this background, but you have to know this before we can continue: basically, Noboru, the third part of our alleged love triangle, says he'll put in a good word with their boss and see if he can help Bunzō get his job back. This hurts Bunzō's pride; he adamantly refuses and they get into a fight. Osei, in her usual rational way, tries to convince him to apologize, but that just makes him angrier and he accuses her of liking Noboru.
This eventually escalates into him saying that she’s acting against their shared Western values of “spiritual love” (which is pretty much what we were talking about in the previous chapter with courtly love, where a man idolizes women, or rather the idea of women, and effectively removes their personhood in the process) by "acting like a geisha" and that he thought what they had was special or whatever. Needless to say, this makes everything so much worse and they end up vowing to never speak to each other again. (Ryan 316-8). I would post the quotes here, but it's a pretty long dialogue… the most relevant thing, though, is when she tells him: "Stop insulting me. You're so conceited. Heaven knows what you've been dreaming up in your own mind" (317). Again, we're seeing this story through Bunzō's point of view and he's an unbelievably unreliable, biased narrator, [1] often going into strange rants and spirals about the 'hidden meanings' behind every little thing, much like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (…minus the murder, of course). He says a lot of misogynistic and just plain weird things about Osei that aren't really evident in our view of her, like accusing her of leading him on this whole time despite her genuinely seeming to not know what he's talking about.
A bit after this argument, one of Osei's mother's friends comes by to brag that her daughter just got married (and to a well-off government man, no less!). Osei maintains that she never wants to get married, but her mother keeps pecking at her throughout the night, and eventually:
Back in her own room, Osei changed her clothes and sank weakly into the bedding spread on the floor. For some time she sat there, her face expressionless. What was she thinking? Was she groping for an answer to her mother's question? Did she regret wasting her time with Bunzō when she should've been finding herself a husband? Or had her hazy confusion been destroyed by the sharp light of her mother's words? Did she realize for the first time that she had come to the end of her former, carefree life, and that this was the moment at which her fate would be decided? Or was she being led to wild dreams, flying towards a joyful, happy future which she could not know of? Was she making her hopes into facts, seeing dreams as reality, at once happy and fearful? Her thoughts were not reflected in her vacant expression, and so we cannot tell. (Ryan 346)
Notice that the narrator literally admits several times, in this paragraph alone, that he doesn't know what she's actually thinking. But immediately after this, she literally giggles, kicks her feet, and rolls around her bed in happiness, apparently having made up her mind. The audience is supposed to assume that this means she's given in and decided that she wants to marry Noboru, after all… but nothing ends up happening. At first, they continue laughing and joking around like they always had, but then she starts suddenly acting coldly towards him:
When he was not in the house, Osei affected great cheerfulness, playing and joking merrily with whomever happened to be present. She made a great show of reciting poems with Onabe [slang for maid, literally translates to "pot"], who could not imagine what was happening. Running, cavorting, laughing – Osei created a gay clatter about the house. But the moment Noboru came, her mood changed and she grew quiet and forlorn. (347)
She hides in her room and ignores him until he finally stops coming by. The narrator comments that Noboru was probably just another fad for her (347)…. That's not what's interesting about this quote, though: remember how I mentioned earlier that Osei was pretty classist? In her early conversations with Bunzō, she would often denigrate her mother (like criticizing her advice on how to flirt in traditional ways, which she considers indecent and contrary to Western beliefs) and complains about how Onabe doesn't understand when she tries to explain an essay she's read recently about equality between men and women ("What can you expect from someone who has no education?" (215)). But, now, all of the sudden:
The two girls […] had recently become good friends. Before this Osei had been too snobbish to speak freely to a servant. (356)
This also happens to coincide with Osei deciding to take knitting classes, and specifically knitting classes, not the Japanese needlework classes that her mother wants her to take that would make her seem like a more valuable potential bride (348). Besides this continued symbolic shunning of traditional Japanese womanhood, knitting is a practical skill particularly in demand at the time, allowing her to potentially earn money of her own, on top of it being a fun hobby. She also mentions wanting to wear makeup (which she previously denounced) and her prettiest kimono to fit in with the other girls in her class (without apparently showing any interest in men and continuing to insist that she doesn’t want to get married). Overall, she seems to be trying to get more involved with other women, even those different from her – she's even stopped getting into fights with her mother (it should also be noted that she’s not overly submissive to her mother, either – she still firmly speaks her mind, but also doesn’t go out of her way to pick fights or insult her like she used to) (348). By all means, she seems to be thriving!
Meanwhile, this whole time Bunzō has still been lost in his own head. He's delighted to see that she no longer talks to Noboru and now when they happen to see each other around the house, she's finally stopped glaring at him and has taken to laughing in his face without saying a word, instead! He initially takes this as a good sign (for some reason?):
Bunzō smiled as he watched [Osei and Onabe go to the bath], accepting his happiness without question for a moment. His favorite fantasies came to the fore again. Perhaps there was nothing to worry about after all. Perhaps it had all been a product of his suspicious mind. But no, something was certainly wrong. He could not overlook her vicious, senseless attack; her initial defiance of her mother followed by her new submissiveness; her gradual estrangement from Noboru, with whom she had been on such intimate terms. These were tangible contradictions to his fantasy. Something was wrong, and he did not know how to reach a greater understanding of the problem. He did not even know if he should feel happy or sad. (356)
Bunzō doesn't understand what's happening and, immediately after this, this story about a presumed love triangle ends with the main love interest cheerfully walking off into the sunset hand in hand with her maid…
Like, my argument here isn't even necessarily that they're gay or anything, but rather it’s indicative of some sort of "homosocial" relationship? I'm quite certain that this was not the conclusion that Futabatei was trying to come to in this book that continually reinforces the importance and inevitability of (heterosexual) marriage written in 1889, but I genuinely don't know how else to read this. Again, this isn't out of character for her in the slightest: she's always been devoted to women's rights, but now, off screen, she's had some character development that's allowed her to step away from her previous prejudices against things she's considered "lower class" and can finally fully connect with other women. [2] Underneath all the misogyny and strange accusations thrown her way, I think Futabatei accidentally wrote a decent character arc here, ending in female solidarity.
Endnotes
Or rather, it's a strange thing where sometimes Bunzō is the narrator and sometimes he's not. Some critics, like Nakamura Mitsuo, say this might be due to Futabatei excessively identifying with and / or projecting onto Bunzō, but Ryan suggests that he was probably just trying to imitate Russian authors like Dostoevsky's use of internal monologues but just hadn't practiced enough with it yet (92-3). ➥
While I still have you, I just wanted to throw in some additional, delusional thoughts here – death of the author and whatnot, y'know? Osei is initially prejudiced against things she perceives as “low class,” yes? But her favorite food is oden, a “low class dish” which is cooked in a pot (nabe) (230). She’s embarrassed by how much she likes it and Bunzō frequently makes fun of her for it. You could make a metaphor out of this… ➥
Works Cited
Futabatei, Shimei. Ukigumo. Translated by Marleigh Grayer Ryan. Colombia University Press, 1971. Online.