Japan's private parts: Place as a metaphor in Nakagami Kenji's works

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the way Nakagami Kenji's texts highlight what are generally repressed elements of mainstream Japanese culture, or what he calls its ‘private parts’. Main texts cited are the collection of essays, Kishū: ki no kuni, ne no kuni monogatari, and the short stories, ‘Shugen’, ‘Fushi’ and ‘Kataku’. Making use of his own peripheral status in relation to Japanese society as a native of the Kumano region, the elements he uncovers include social discrimination against the buraku (outcaste) community and a high degree of misogyny expressed through sexual violence. A particular feature of Nakagami's work is that, although he appears to be working within the traditional Japanese narrative tradition, that very tradition is subverted and challenged by narrative elements related specifically to the writer's experience of having grown up in Kumano. Nakagami's narrative strength emerges from the fact that he has access to an ‘outsider's’ perspective while being fully informed of the expectation ...