Analysis

The handscroll containing to Leaves of Wild Ginger (Aoi) does it’s best to illuminate that moment in The Tale Of Genji to its fullest. While the story itself does a great job with the imagery it provides, Leaves of Wild Ginger goes a step further breathing life into the characters and the story even giving us a vivid visualization into how Genji feels. This imagery helps us fully realize just how much of a monster the Rujoko~ Lady is. It is so strong that not only does she allow it to consume her emotionally, she allows it to manifest to the point where so angry, her spirit leaves her body and attacks other individuals that Genji loves, the evening face lady and his wife Aoi, ultimately resulting in Aoi’s death. The most striking part of the imagery that shows us how the Rujoko~ Lady is a monster is how Genji reacts while Aoi is speaking to him. It is immediately shocking to experience the wrong voice coming out of someone you know, but the part that sells it is Genji’s reaction, while he does question himself, he also makes the reader question what’s going on and adds tension to both the reader’s experience and the story overall. Another striking moment of imagery comes a few pages later during the continued exorcism attempts. The Rujoko~ Lady has the smell of poppy clinging to her, and despite her best efforts, she cannot get it out. While it is not scary by nature the intriguing part is the fact that poppy is only really burnt for exorcisms, and since the smell is clinging to her it is implied she is the spirit haunting Aoi, making her the monster. Another detail to note in regard to the poppy seed smell scene is that the Rujoko Lady is desperately trying to get rid of it, yes because it is an unpleasant smell but also because if she were found out, it would spell the end of her residence of those in the upper circle and her expulsion from upper society.  Both the text and the artifact continue to show what sort of effect the Rujoko~ Lady has left behind. It is confirmed while she feels guilty about what she has done, she cares more about losing her political favour and power if found out compared to the actual act of murder. The Rujoko~ Lady’s shows how women are disadvantaged and taken advantage of by the laws and customs of the world they reside in; it also suggests that by either subverting those customs or very carefully cultivating the affections of powerful men, only then will they have some control over their own lives. Throughout most of the novel (specifically the first half), women are generally shown to be at the mercy of the men they live around. In particular, this rings especially true in reference to the sexual desires of the men around them. Women are supposed to keep out of sight from any man that is not her father or husband, typically behind screens, but these screens actually afford them little to no privacy, often being the very place a lot of the abuse they suffer through starts. These “relationships” often begin by rape, and the women would be at blame for the men’s actions and would not be able to call out for help. In regards to Genji, if a women were to call out Genji’s reputation would be damaged but hers would be as well, irreparably, making giving into Genji that lesser of two evils. This blatantly suggests that women would often live their lives constantly in fear of the unwanted sexual advances of the men that surround them and are equally unable to escape the ensuing sexual relationships for fear of retaliation from society. While the beginning of a lot of these relationships is rather unfortunate, the story does suggest that having sexual relations with the “right” men is an effective way to become powerful within society. An example of this would be Fujitsubo and her son, Reizei. While Reizei is Genji's biological son, Fujitsubo and Genji keep this a secret from the Emperor. Due to this, Fujitsubo is able to maintain her powerful position and catapult her son to the emperorship at a very young age. Another example would be the Akashi Lady. While she is of country birth, Genji impregnates her and they have a daughter. Genji promises to bring them to court (seen as unheard of at the time), which would raise the Akashi Lady’s standings even with her background of not having grown up in the city. Genji never follows through with this showing that even as women obtain power, they're still very reliant on their relationships with men to obtain and then maintain said power. This shows us that even as women can ascend to high-ranking places in Heian society, they're only able to do so by working within a system inherently stacked against them and by using the abuses they suffer to their advantage whenever possible. By this reasoning, the actions of the Rujoko~ Lady, while understandable if being looked at in the context of women and power in this period of Japan show women are not worth much if they are not favoured by men of political power, but through looking at the text and artifact, her actions are painted as very selfish, and this is the main reason why she should be viewed as a monster. She goes so far as to accompany her daughter to a shrine as a type of repentance for her deed, but she still returns to Genji once again. In the end, she is both haunting Genji and in a way haunting herself. By being unable to let go of her jealousy she traps herself in an endless cycle of it that ultimately results in her death, her final interaction with Genji in the story being her asking him to care for her daughter. Possession in Japanese literature is quite common, typically called Ikiryō (referring to a living spirit that leaves a body due to a grudge or other negative traits and haunts another person or place). In reference to Japanese literature, The Tale Of Genji is one of the most prominent examples mentioned due to its legacy as one of Japan’s classics. While sorting through a few other classics from the same time period, a pattern appeared for the Ikiryō. Each example shows either a human-like spirit being guided somewhere to get revenge on someone, or the story of what happened to an individual(s) plagued by the spirits. The hauntings of said individuals often end up in death, with the revenge achieved easing the spirits of those who were out for revenge to begin with.