谷崎潤一郎『蓼喰ふ虫』についての一考察 －母性思慕と永遠女性を中心に－

Abstract

This paper considers some prefer nettles of Junichiro Tanizaki as a transitional work from his early Western-inspired works to his later traditional Japanese works. This is a study on the theme of the eternal woman. Most　research into some prefer nettles has concentrated on Junichiro Tanizaki’s autobiographical novel. The author, however, intends to identify the eternal woman of Junichiro Tanizaki by analyzing some prefer nettles from the structural aspect of the novel. The novel consists of three stories: the first story concerns the world of a couple foreshadowing the divorce of the protagonist Kaname and his wife Misako; and the second, a traditional world where Kaname, his wife Misako, his father in law, the old man’s mistress Louise go on a trip to Awaji to see a puppet theater play Bunraku; and the third, the Western world where Kaname and his lover Louise have the physical pleasures. It can be said that this novel is composed of the story of the protagonist Kaname falling into the Asian world against the backdrop of the couple’s world and the Western world. In Chapter2 of this paper, we examined his move to the Kansai area that influenced the traditional regression in Junichiro Tanizaki’s literature. As a result, it can be said that after his relocation to the Kansai area in the Taishō 12 (1923), from the end of the Taishō period to the early Shōwa period, it was a period of confusion from Westernism to Orientalism, while at the same time exotic sentiment toward the West was to be changed into Kansai. In Chapter 3, 4 we looked at the eternal woman of Junichiro Tanizaki by focusing on the story of the protagonist Kaname getting into the puppet theater play Bunraku. It can be seen that the eternal woman with a young and beautiful Western appearance in the past is being transformed into an Asian woman at the time of writing some prefer nettles. It is a figure of the eternal woman like doll that does not easily reveal personality in the Japanese tradition. However, Junichiro Tanizaki’s admiration for his own young and beautiful mother is inherent in Junichiro Tanizaki’s literature. His feelings for any admiring woman are idealized in fantasy and she is admired as the eternal woman. In Chapter 5 of this paper, we examined the whitish face of the eternal woman. In particular, the whitish face of the eternal woman is taken from the image of Junichiro Tanizaki’s own mother’s pure white face. It can be said that it is the face of an etenal woman with classical beauty.