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Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature./
Author:	Sivak, Kristin Leigh.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2020,
Description:	337 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-06, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International82-06A.
Subject:	Asian literature. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28094642
ISBN:	9798698549222

Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature.
Sivak, Kristin Leigh.

Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2020 - 337 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-06, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto (Canada), 2020.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

While the servants who appear in twentieth-century Japanese literature are often minor characters, they are far from insignificant. Rather, these servant characters in fact play a vital role in the narrative discourse seemingly out of proportion with the attention that their class, gender, and employment status-as well as a surface reading of the story-might lead us to expect. By exploring some of the different kinds of structural 'work' they do, then, as well as the ways in which their very literary nature grants them a degree of authority beyond that of their real-life corollaries, this dissertation aims to construct a narrative about a type of character whose impact on literary fiction well exceeds the bounds of the textual space they occupy. With this in mind, I take up an examination of servant characters in the works of three canonical authors who themselves experienced life with servants, Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), and Mishima Yukio (1925-1970). An analysis of servant characters offers an opportunity to explore issues of representation, power, and authority in modern Japanese fiction. From the ethical question of how to acknowledge those we cannot speak for, to examining the connections between domestic spaces and literary spaces, to uncovering the latent power of traditionally undervalued forms of labor, this dissertation proposes a narratological examination of the role of servants in twentieth-century Japanese fiction as a means for rethinking questions of representation and the plurality of perspectives in literature.Over three chapters, I discuss questions of literary ethics and what it means to respect and acknowledge the blind spots that always accompany difference, how servant characters share and construct the domestic space with their employers, and how the embodied intimacy and unbridled access afforded servant characters might empower them even to take control over their employers' narratives. In doing so, I argue for a reconsideration of what it means for the minor to assert itself from within the canon, proposing new ways of thinking about the structural dimensions of representation, power, and authority as revealed through the roles of minor servant characters.

ISBN: 9798698549222Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122707
Asian literature.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Character

Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature.
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245 1 0 $a Serving Stories: Servant Characters in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature.
260 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2020
300 $a 337 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 82-06, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Sakaki, Atsuko.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto (Canada), 2020.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a While the servants who appear in twentieth-century Japanese literature are often minor characters, they are far from insignificant. Rather, these servant characters in fact play a vital role in the narrative discourse seemingly out of proportion with the attention that their class, gender, and employment status-as well as a surface reading of the story-might lead us to expect. By exploring some of the different kinds of structural 'work' they do, then, as well as the ways in which their very literary nature grants them a degree of authority beyond that of their real-life corollaries, this dissertation aims to construct a narrative about a type of character whose impact on literary fiction well exceeds the bounds of the textual space they occupy. With this in mind, I take up an examination of servant characters in the works of three canonical authors who themselves experienced life with servants, Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965), and Mishima Yukio (1925-1970). An analysis of servant characters offers an opportunity to explore issues of representation, power, and authority in modern Japanese fiction. From the ethical question of how to acknowledge those we cannot speak for, to examining the connections between domestic spaces and literary spaces, to uncovering the latent power of traditionally undervalued forms of labor, this dissertation proposes a narratological examination of the role of servants in twentieth-century Japanese fiction as a means for rethinking questions of representation and the plurality of perspectives in literature.Over three chapters, I discuss questions of literary ethics and what it means to respect and acknowledge the blind spots that always accompany difference, how servant characters share and construct the domestic space with their employers, and how the embodied intimacy and unbridled access afforded servant characters might empower them even to take control over their employers' narratives. In doing so, I argue for a reconsideration of what it means for the minor to assert itself from within the canon, proposing new ways of thinking about the structural dimensions of representation, power, and authority as revealed through the roles of minor servant characters.
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650 4 $a Asian studies. $3 1571829
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650 4 $a Literary criticism. $3 3563294
653 $a Character
653 $a Japan
653 $a Literature
653 $a Narratology
653 $a Representation
653 $a Servant
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690 $a 0342
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710 2 $a University of Toronto (Canada). $b East Asian Studies. $3 3173719
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 82-06A.
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792 $a 2020
793 $a English
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28094642