Abstract
Prostitutes are distinguished from other “innocent” and “respectable” women. In this paper, I use
Natsuo Kirino’s Grotesque to explore how literature blurs this line. Grotesque is based on the ‘Toden
OL Murder Case’ in 1997, the victim of which worked as a prostitute by night, while she was an elite
career woman in TEPCO by day. Therefore, the media, especially weekly gossip magazines, covered
her private life as a sex worker insistently. I compare Grotesque’s narrative to the magazines’ version to
analyze the representation of prostitutes in literature versus the mass media.
The media’s gossip excluded the victims from having the “normal” life of innocent citizens. In
other words, they labeled prostitutes as “social death.” Similarly, the narrator of Grotesque, “Watashi,”
vilifies her sister, Yuriko and her classmate, Kazue, who worked as sex workers and were murdered.
Watashi’s narrative attempts to emulate media’s narrative and distinguish herself from them. However,
she fails. I point out that the failure reflects her melancholy toward the victims. It enables her to mourn
for the murdered prostitutes in the last scene of the novel.
I conclude that the novel shows the work of mourning for prostitutes, who are labeled “social
death” by the media.
