Deadly Love: Mothers, Whores, and Other Demonic Females in Japanese Theatre

Abstract

Co‐existing with the traditional Japanese view of woman as docile, self‐sacrificing, and nurturing is an equally ancient image of woman as powerful shamaness, terrifying demon, sexual enchantress, or suffocating mother. Misogynistic and gynophobic tendencies in traditional and contemporary Japanese culture represent to certain male artists an authentic, pre‐Buddhist, pre‐Shinto Japanese soul. Fear of female sexuality and female power is traced in selected works of Shuji Terayama, Juro Kara, Tadashi Suzuki and Shogo Ohta. These contemporary Japanese male playwrights derive themes, images and characters from the rich traditions of Japanese classical literature, folk culture, Western mythology, and personal experience. They share a preference for psycho‐sexual fantasies which are often disturbingly sado‐masochistic in their depiction of women.