Body Read in Bunroku Shishi (Toyo’o Iwata)’s Novel: Unstable Sexuality in Ghost Story of Youth (1954)

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the body images seen in Bunroku Shishi (Toyo’o Iwata)’s novel, Ghost Story of Youth written in 1954. Shishi was one of the co-founder of the theatre company Bungaku-za (established in 1937), but now little is known about him as a theatre practitioner because of his lack of career as a playwright. Rather, he has been famous as a popular novelist. But, in my view, his novels could be analyzed through his experience of theatre practitioner. Chiaki, one of the protagonist of Ghost Story of Youth, is a ballet dancer. The story focuses on her unstable body. She feels uncomfortable in her female body because she is not sure she is a woman in biological term, which leads to several troubles around her. For example, Shin’ichi, her childhood friend and fiancé, suspects her sexuality and wonders if they could marry. Chiaki herself can not handle her body and her dancing practice. Finally, she is replaced her role as a prima-donna of Swan’s Lake by her rival dancer. But through performative affirmation of her sexual identity, she rediscovers her deep love to Shin’ichi and finds herself again as a woman. In this point, this story can be said an earlier statement of performative construction of gender identity, which is now a standard term of feminist theory. Less is known how Shishi acquired this innovative point of view because he did not mention much about his writing. But it might be said that his experience as a theatre practitioner and a theatre theorist reflects on this innovative perspective. For example, Shishi had stayed in Paris for several years in 1920’s and went to ballet performance, including Ballet Russes, frequently. He was so fascinated in the ballet world that he once intended to become a ballet critic. His concern moved towards the research of innovative directors, such as Jacques Copeau, but he seemed to continue his research about ballet and left some writing about it after he came back to Japan. Added to that, Shishi’s daughter Tomoe’s character, which is written in some of his semi-autobiographical novels, might lead to Chiaki in Ghost Story of Youth because she is said to be less female. But it remains no more than speculation.