헤이안시대 문학에 나타난 질병과 죽음

Abstract

This study examined what are the functions of sickness and death in the Heian literature such as Taketori Monogatari, Ise Monogatari, and Genji Monogatari. It explored how the main characters of these Monogataries got sick and came to die, which leads the plot of each Monogatari in terms of the relationships of the main characters. In Taketori Monogatari, five young noblemen among many suitors made efforts to meet the needs of Kaguyahime who came from the Moon, another world. However she rejected all the proposals even from that of the emperor’s and ascended up to heaven leaving an elixir of life and a letter. The emperor burned them which implies the life of emperor’s family is finite and corresponds by smoke with another world. A motif of Ise Monogatari is death by lovesickness. There are many stories that the main characters are suffered from lovesickness in Ise Monogatari. It is because that the readers of this Monogatari were unmarried young people, and they read it as a rite of passage. In Genji Monogatari, major characters are suffered from sickness of Mononoke, which is haunted by an apparition of a living person or a departed soul. Genji sees Mononoke, the evil spirits that afflict Yugao, Aoinoue, Murasakinoue, and Onnasannomiya directly, and that is a subplot which suggests a theme of Monogatari beforehand. Sickness and death foreshadow the theme of each Monogatari; communication with another world in Taketori Monogatari, death by lovesickness in Ise Monogatari, Yamato Monogatari, and Heichu Monogatari, and becoming a Buddhist priestess and death in Genji Monogatari. Sickness and death, collectively known as Mononoke are the major motifs in order to depict the love relationships of main characters in Heian Literature.