Gendered Emotions: Masculine and Feminine Emotional Modes of Writing in Japanese Atomic Bomb Literature

Abstract

This article examines gendered emotional patterns in Japanese Atomic Bomb Literature through sentiment analysis (SA), challenging the assumption that women’s writing is inherently caregiving. Using the Oseti SA model, the study introduces sentiment protection, a measure of how authors shield their characters from trauma. Findings reveal that male authors exhibit stronger sentiment protection than female writers, reversing traditional gender expectations. Analyzing hibakusha and non-hibakusha authors, the study suggests that sentiment protection functions as a genre-defining feature, with male writers adhering to narrative conventions while female authors demonstrate greater variability. Bridging feminist literary criticism, digital humanities, and reception theory, this study formalizes gendered writing assumptions into computationally testable hypotheses. By integrating algorithmic criticism, this research provides a data-driven perspective on gender, trauma, and genre in Japanese war literature, offering new insights into the emotional structures of narratives depicting nuclear catastrophe.