Le roman familial de Yasuoka Shôtarô

Abstract

The story of Prince Ajase, as related by Japanese psychoanalyst Kosawa Heisaku in his theory of the Ajase complex, reveals a close resemblance to the theories of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. As with Kleinian developmental narrative, guilt in the Ajase plot originates in the child's psychic integration of "bad" and "good" maternal figures. A preliminary glance at the Ajase legend from Kleinian viewpoint might suggest that Queen Idaike is transformed into a "bad mother" on revealing her love for the King Bimbashara -and later returns to being a "good mother" when she devotes herself to the share of her son, Ajase. However, I would argue that a different, opposite, formulation is also discernible in the Ajase text : one in which Idaike as the "bad mother", narcissistically identified with her child, becomes a "good mother" on reaffirming her libidinal bond with the paternal figure. Through close examination of several passages, I will suggest that this latter plot also informs Yasuoka Shôtarô 's 1959 family romance, A View by the Sea. The Yasuoka narrative, like the Ajase legend, can be understood as depicting the integration of a "bad mother", identified with her son, and a "good mother", identified with the paternal figure. Although this spot may run counter to some narratives of classical psychoanalysis — which posit a blissful symbiosis with the mother and resentment of parental sexuality — Yasuoka locates his formulation in a very specific context : that of a pseudo-incestuous bond between mother and son. Finally, as in the story of Prince Ajase, psychic integration of "bad" and "good" maternal figures in Yasuoka 's text will be shown to lie at the origin of the hero's sense of guilt.