Chiasmatic Narrative and Twisted Subjectivity in Kanai Mieko's Boshizô Authors Mary A. Knighton Washington & Lee University Keywords: Japanese literature, psychoanalysis, Kanai Mieko, Boshizô, female subjectivity, Oedipus complex, female desire, incest Abstract The article provides a reading, from a psychoanalytic point of view, of Japanese writer Kanai Mieko's short tale Boshizô (Portrait of Mother and Child), published in 1992, as a "twisted" or "contorted" parable of the construction of female subjectivity. Establishing connections between the form and the content of the novel, the essay analyzes how Kanai's use of the rhetorical figure of the chiasmus structures the internal narrative of the novel at the same time that it reflects the process of formation of female subjectivity and desire. The novel becomes, thus, a staging of the female Oedipus complex which plays out its twists. Downloads PDF (Català) Published 2011-11-28 Issue No. 16 (2010): Mujeres en Asia Oriental Section Dossier License The Author retains ownership of the copyright in this article, unless the opposite is expressed, and all rights not expressly granted in this agreement, including the nonexclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, and display the article in print or electronic form, and grants, Lectora: revista de dones i textualitat the exclusive rights to print publication of the Article for a period beginning when this Agreement is executed and ending twelve (12) months after the first publicaton of the work in this Journal. After this time, the work will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license, by which the article must be credited to the Author and the Journal be credited as first place of publication. Beginning twelve (12) months after the article´s first publication, the Author is free to enter in seperate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the work as published in this journal. The Author is encouraged to post the work online (eg in institutional or subject repositories, or on their website) after the exclusivity period of twelve (12) months has expired, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as a greater citation of the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
