The claustrophilic enclosure: toward a speculative philosophy of perversion in Edogawa Rampo

Abstract

This article offers a counterpoint to the predominantly sociological analyses of Edogawa Rampo (1894–1965) by tracing the speculative philosophy of perversion that emerges in his early corpus, notably in the two short stories “Osei tōjō” (1926) and “Yaneura no sanposha” (1925). It adopts Yokoo Tadanori’s concept of claustrophilia to argue that Rampo, akin to the Surrealists who were his contemporaries, sought a bridge to the unconscious drives that lay behind modern sexuality. This appears most clearly in Rampo’s literary works that employ the closet (oshi’ire) as an enclosure for self-contemplation and fantasy, as well as a stage for desire to emerge and achieve realization. The article further contextualizes Rampo’s role in the prewar debates defending so-called “deviant” (henkaku) detective fiction against the ratiocinative norms of the genre championed by fellow detective fiction writers such as Kōga Saburō and Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke.