The Ideal of a Man, the Ideal of a Woman of the Heian Court Based on the Tale of Genji

The biological sex of a person, in most cases, today can still be considered one of the main identifying characteristics of an individual. In the past the sex of a person was more than an identifying characteristic, it was who they were. They were either men or women, there was no in between or changing it. Society today has come a long way in terms of gender identity and gender roles, but the concept of patriarchy still has the upper hand when it all boils down. Allan G. Johnson’s, The Gender Knot, provides for a more diverse outlook on the women’s expected roles in life, how they are expected to handle difficult situations in marriage, and how they demonstrate courage, in Mona Lisa Smile.

Although Murasaki Shikibu parodies the idealness of Genji’s character by showing even though he is ideal he is still not perfect, by having Genji admired by the majority of the other characters in the story she is acknowledging that Genji is an ideal man (or at least as close as one can get in the Heian Court). “His [Genji’s] many flaws are balanced by his charm, taste, generosity, humor, and sensitivity.”

Murasaki often doesn’t wish to see Genji or speak to him, so their relationship is troubled at times, but also quite strong and passionate. Genji wants her in the role of the perfect woman, but Murasaki hopes for different things. Murasaki is envisioned by Genji to be the ideal women, so evidently Genji wants her to be an intrinsic part of his life, and therefore spends a lot of time pursuing Murasaki, though her daughter role and the role of possible lover alters the way Genji pursues her. Murasaki has the power to resist however, and she at times neglects Genji, which occasionally upsets him. This could parallel how Genji treats Aoi as often times, Murasaki does not want Genji to be part of her life. Each of these three examples clearly outlines the different roles and influences women play throughout Genji’s life, and each one has the power to bring out different emotions and characteristics in Genji.

In this paper, I am going to analyze the female characters that caught my attention the most in the three stories The Epic of Gilgamesh, Thousand and One Nights, and Candide. They all are important characters in each of the stories and their influence in the story is to help. These stories also depict how women were being treated during these times such as being used for their bodies or their wisdom. The characters that I will be analyzing in the paper are Shamhat, Shiduri, Sharazad, the Old Woman, and Cunegonde. In all three stories, they mostly share the same depictions of the role of women and how women weren’t really important besides their bodies.

In The Tale of Genji, Genji struggles to find who he wants to become throughout the book. He is born to royalty, but then gets his status taken away as a kid by his father, the emperor. As he grows up he falls in love many times and eventually sleeps with one of his father's wives. He then contemplates the death of one of his lovers and goes into depression but is eventually brought out of it and he goes visit Lady Rojukō to reminisce about the past events. Eventually, Genji finds the path to take but still finds much love which he wants to keep. In The Tale of Genji the tradition of aesthetic and cultural consciousness of Japan is reflected through impermanence, mono no aware, and wabi.

In society, women are often recognized as being the weakest and dependent gender while men are the most powerful. In Ihara Saikaku’s novel From Life of a Sensuous Women, he challenged the views on women by society and represented women as strong and powerful individuals. The novel was made of short stories where women used their sexuality to their advantage and to gain power over men. The women also did not follow the responsibility that society believes they should adhere to, such as marrying a man, having kids, and being the housewife who cooks, cleans and takes care of her family while her husband goes about his job. Instead, they lived with a loosed sexuality and had several lovers, which was not considered as to what the traditional women do. In addition to not being a housewife, the women had the ability to play sports and be good at them. These characteristics that were given to women challenged society and what they believe the ordinary women should be like. In From Life of a sensuous Woman, Saikaku showed how women might use the power of sexuality to overpower men, managed to question the traditional view of women as the compliant housewife, and challenged the assumptions of females as the weaker gender.

Building on the notions of femininity and masculinity, the author outlines all the cliché qualities of men and women, supporting them with vivid imagery, while also being careful with his

The passage Lesson for Women is a work done by Ban Zhao that goes into detail on the proper ways a lady should act. Not only does the author explain the ways but she also goes into detail to help others understand what it’s like for a woman of that time period. When writing the author provides us with detailed sentences and a lot of informative material. Over the course of this essay we will be breaking down the key elements of this passage to fully understand it.

In the satire of the sexes, Egalia’s Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg, there is put forth a society different from which has ever been present in modern times. This would be a society where women were at the forefront and did the decision making, worked and held governmental positions. The men were portrayed in the way females live in present society, though it was often exaggerated to make that point. Men were dominated and ruled by women and had to do their bidding and cook for them and take care of the children, so on and so forth. By taking a hard look at how sexuality is imagined and experienced on all analytical levels and picking apart the social construction of gender in Egalia’s Daughters, society itself in the present can start to

Social rank was a main factor in determining women’s role in court and from the first chapter of “The Tale of Genji” author Maruabu Shikabu stressed the importance of social role. Genji’s mother, often the brunt of slanderous abuse from the Emperors wife, withdrew from court and took Genji away from court to live with her family. Social importance was best explained though in chapter two by Genji’s friend, To-no-Chujo. Chujo defines the different ranks to Genji while discussing the women they have slept with. To suggests that the three different ranks among women were; “High rank, Middle Rank, and No Rank (Commoners). Genji’s mother was a lower (Middle) rank

In Ihara Saikaku’s story, Life of a Sensuous Woman, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s work, “Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, the issue of double standards in gender are examined. Both pieces offer a perspective into the lives of women during their respective times and show how some standards that are considered favorable for men, are looked down upon for women. In particular, the two works examine how women were treated differently based on their education, their social status and even their sexual history. Saikaku looks at these issues in a different lens from Wollstonecraft, based on his experiences as a man living in Japan in the 17th century. Their experiences shape their works and show how the issue of double standards of gender span culture, time and geography.

In both The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Tale of Genji women play a very important role. In a time were men were considered to be leaders, fighters, and the powerful decision makers, it was the women behind them that supported, advised, and took care of them. In the ancient times females were considered dominate over males because they had the ability to carry a child and continue human life. These two tales show us the important roles that women played and the vulnerability of women in a male dominated world. In each story women are considered as important characters, but each story portrays them differently.

In the modern world women work, vote, run for office and the list goes on. In most aspects, women are equal to men. However, this was not always the case. In centuries past, women were not viewed as being equal to men socially, intellectually, or politically and were thought incapable of accomplishing anything of value. Consequently, many cultures held the view that women were possessions whose only purpose was to be subservient to men. The view of women as mere objects is evident in various works of literature throughout the ages. Two classic works of literature that exemplify this are The Thousand and One Nights and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of

It must be said that men of power create the structure of life--which is not necessarily profitable or fitting to women, nor to the human race in its entirety. Women do not live in this structure:“They lead beautiful lives--women. Lives not only divorced from, but irrevocably excommunicated from, all reality” (156).

The values, makoto and aware, are also deeply ingrained into The Tale of Genji and are a recurring theme within the work. The men are always searching for women with sincere characteristics, and the women are always chasing after Genji, who is a paragon of sincerity. The value of aware is quite Buddhist in nature and describes the impermanence of all things. This is definitely the most significant religious influence on The Tale of Genji because aware is the abounding theme throughout the tale. Genji is constantly witnessing the impermanence of life. One such example is when he loses his wife, Aoi, to childbirth. She is very sick and fragile after the birth of their son, and Genji is deeply moved by her fragility, “The sight of her lying there, so beautiful yet so thin and weak that she hardly seemed among the living, aroused his love and his keenest sympathy” (Tyler, 179). After Aoi’s death, Genji takes it hard and “life was intolerable to him” (Tyler, 180). The feeling of aware is embodied in Genji’s reaction to Aoi’s sickness and death; moreover, the fragility of life is made clear to him