Narrative Situation in Tonomine Shosho monogatari

Abstract

This paper will discuss the development of a hybrid form of poetry and prose which became the norm of prose works in classical Japanese literature and the effect such prose and the abundance of epistles and dialogue had on the narrative structure of a tenth century tale, Tonomine Shosho monogatari (The Tale of the Lesser Captain of Tonomine). At first such narrative techniques seem to yield a narration in the first person. However, upon closer examination one realizes that it is not a first person narrative in the usual sense of the term. The narrator is not a well delieneated personality, let alone a character in the tale; she is a kind of “communal story‐telling persona,”“a voice of an undifferentiated narrative self,” placed in the text more out of linguistic necessity than aesthetic, authorial choice. An ever present persona, not even effaced when her characters are on stage, the narrator has her characters speak through her, using her voice, much as the ventriloquist “talks” for his doll. One scholar terms this unique narrative point of view, “the speaker's point of view,” for the narration seems to occur only from the perspective of a narrator who necessarily sees, participates in, or hears about the events, and whose perspective exhibits a psychological, conceptual, and perceptual uniformity with character, reader, and even author.