Paper short abstract:

The sudden appearance of Tamakazura rekindles the adventurous womaniser in now-middle-aged Hikaru Genji. Despite becoming a toy in Genji's mischievous plot, she manages to escape Lady Murasaki's fate.However, can Tamakazura's resilience give voice to a novelistic character with distinctive features?

Paper long abstract:

Even a thousand years after its birth, The Tale of Genji is widely read by people of all ages and scholars worldwide. Murasaki Shikibu’s literary genius shows itself within the multi-layered story of the Shining Prince by creating autonomous characters distinct from the authorial voice. Although it is not commonly studied in English-speaking Academia, the ten-chapter-long Tamakazura Sequence stands out amongst others for its novelistically constructed features. Moreover, the character’s internal monologues, self-composed poems and how others perceive her provide insight into Tamakazura’s growth and evolution throughout the story. Accordingly, this paper takes Tamakazura’s character as an example to elaborate on the discourse of monogatari that is nurtured by ancient Japanese poetry and developed by Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian period.

The sudden appearance of Tamakazura rekindles the adventurous womaniser in now-middle-aged Genji. He takes his long lost lover Yūgao's daughter as one of his, yet Genji's affection towards this beautiful young woman changes direction quickly. Even though Tamakazura becomes a toy in the Shining Prince's mischievous plot, she manages to escape Lady Murasaki's fate by marrying another man. Tamakazura's character evolves in various ways and develops a unique voice that differs from other characters by adding her story a bildungsroman quality. However, can Tamakazura's resilience be enough to make her into a novelistic character?

Keywords: discourse, novel, Genji monogatari, poetry, character analysis