Session 03: Uchi-soto (connectedness)

Topics

❖ Uchi-soto used to explore Heian period texts (and texts written in that style) in terms of gaining entrance to groups and being ejected from groups.

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

In almost all corners of premodern Japan (in terms of era, in terms of social class, in terms of geogrpahy) membership in group(s) is essential for identity, if not survival. Expellation from one's group is one of the most frightening of prospects. "Suspense" or areas of narrative tension are often built around the anxiety-producing question: "Am I slipping out of my group?" Today we explore both being in, being removed from, and being outside groups. I have developed a group of Heian period women's texts (for the most part) as the reading. These women were, essentially, of the same social group, and knew each other.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read in full Izumi Shikibu Diary - first visit [bSpace, PDF]. Seeking entrance.

✓ Read in full Murasaki Shikibu Diary - Izumi and Sei [bSpace, PDF] Read noting the difference in the estimation of these two women: Izumi Shikibu (protagonist in Diary of Izumi Shikibu, Izumi shikibu nikki) and Sei Shōnagon (author of Pillow Book) by the writer of the journal, Murasaki Shikibu (author of The Tale of Genji).

✓ Read in full Confessions of Lady Nijo: her ejection from the palace [bSpace, PDF]. An example of exile. The earlier pages can be read more quickly, but the whole does work together to give the moment full impact. Nijo was given to the emperor (Go-Fukakusa) by her father but already loved someone else. Nijo slept with a number of men (including the Ariake of this passage—a code name because this is an autobiographical work and she cannot mention real names), on both sides of the political divide of her time and lived a dangerous life. She became a nun. While this work is several hundreds of years after the others assigned for today, it retains the same sensibility of court life. One huge exception: it is written after the Buddhist reforms of the 13th c. and Buddhism colors this text more deeply than the others.

✓ One passage from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. In McCullough's anthology (purchased for this class) it is Pillow Book: 91. Once while Her Majesty was staying in the Empress's Office ...". In Meredith McKinney's translation is it Section 82. In Ivan Morris's translation it is Section 83. It is about an old woman who comes to visit. This episode shows uchi-soto from two perspectives: an outsider ridiculed and games "insiders" play among themselves. It seems like two different stories, but they are definitely joined by the concept of "who is outside, who is inside?"

Multimedia notes

❖ Uchi and soto: connectedness [bSpace, PPT]

Links

⇢ None at this time.

Other

Terms that might have been mentioned today that have definitions on this site: dohyo, roji, Sen Rikyu, uchi-soto.