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Paper short abstract

This presentation examines abjection and cannibalism in Murata Sayaka’s Sokumeishiki (Life Ceremony) and Chikyū seijin (Earthlings), showing how bodily transgression challenges norms of gender, reproduction, and humanity.

Paper long abstract

Murata Sayaka is one of the most influential voices in contemporary Japanese literature. Her works repeatedly depict individuals trapped within rigid social systems that enforce normative models of family, gender, and reproduction. By positioning her narratives at the boundary between the rational and the irrational, Murata exposes the violence inherent in social conformity and challenges conventional definitions of what is considered “normal” or “human”.

　My presentation examines two of Murata’s works: the short story Sokumeishiki (Life Ceremony) and the novel Chikyū seijin (Earthlings). In both texts, the protagonists—Taketani and Natsuki—fail or refuse to adapt to the demands of a collective that prioritises reproduction, productivity, and heteronormative family structures. Their resistance is articulated through abjection, most visibly expressed in bodily transgression and cannibalism.

　In Sokumeishiki, Taketani inhabits a society in which the bodies of the deceased are consumed in ritualised meals, and the sokumeishiki ceremony requires one person to eat another to sustain reproduction. While Taketani eventually accepts this worldview, she resists the social order by rejecting the physical act of procreation. Her relationship with a gay man, another social outsider, offers an alternative form of relationality that circumvents reproductive obligation without directly confronting the system.

　Chikyū seijin follows Natsuki from childhood into adulthood. Believing herself to be an alien, she perceives society as a “factory” designed to condition individuals into forming families and reproducing. Traumatised by familial rejection, maternal aggression, and sexual abuse, Natsuki retreats into a fantasy of extraterrestrial belonging. Together with her husband and her cousin, she withdraws from society. This isolation culminates in acts of cannibalism and mutual bodily consumption, which function as an extreme rejection of social, moral, and biological norms.

Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection (1982) and feminist interpretations of cannibalism as a reclamation of subjectivity (Moreira Vitzthum 2023), this paper argues that Murata further complicates these readings by depicting cannibalism as a shared practice among marginalised men and women. Through abject bodies and taboo acts, Murata destabilises fixed gender roles, humanity, and social belonging, compelling readers to reconsider the limits of identity and the violence embedded in normative social orders.