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Paper short abstract

This paper focuses on Enchi’s works where economically vulnerable wives confront marital infidelity. It highlights how social class influenced marital, reproductive and sexual choices. The study aims to deepen the concept of women’s autonomy through employment as it was negotiated by Japanese women.

Paper long abstract

Enchi Fumiko’s works generally focus on a refined, well-educated female protagonist who holds an intellectual profession or works as an artist or writer, and whose occupation constitutes a defining aspect of her identity rather than merely a means of economic subsistence. This study focuses primarily on two short novels by Enchi Fumiko (1905–1986) written in the 1950s, both of which instead center on women engaged in less privileged forms of employment. Specifically, I examine Korosu 「殺す」 (1955) and Tsuma no kakioki 「妻の書きおき」 (1957), both first published in Fujin kōron, which depict the dilemma of wives who become aware of their husbands’ infidelity. In both narratives, the wives’ inability to confront their husbands is closely tied to their economic vulnerability.

A specular contrast emerges between the two protagonists: in one case, the wife’s lower social status leads her to envy her husband’s lover, a doctor whose professional position highlights the class disparity between them; in the other, the protagonist instead empathizes with her rival, a poor war widow. In both works, social and political contexts play a crucial role, extending the reflection on the presumed freedom of working women beyond economic independence alone, and linking it to marriage, reproduction, and sexuality.

On this basis, I compare these stories with a later work, Hanayakana Kūge 「はなやかな空華」 (first published in Shōsetsu gendai in 1966), whose protagonist occupies a markedly different position as a wealthy, lesbian doctor. Through the depiction of her intimate relationships with women of a different class, the narrative reveals that women in postwar Japan who lacked independent careers were often obliged to marry, embracing compulsory heterosexuality not solely as a result of social prejudice, but more fundamentally for economic reasons.

By analyzing works by one of the most prominent female writers of the period that portray employed women from different perspectives, and by situating these texts within their social and political contexts, this study aims to deepen the concept of women’s autonomy through employment as it was negotiated by Japanese women in the 1950s and 1960s.