“It’s not the World, it’s You”: (Re)humanizing Patterns in Higuchi Ichiyō’s Fiction Writing

Higuchi Ichiyō’s (1872-1896) portrayal of late nineteenth-century teenagers just about to cross the border between childhood and adulthood, in "Takekurabe" (1895), revealed her artistic talent and sensitivity towards societal change. Although she has often been essentialized as a figure of the past, still relying on traditional values and structures, Ichiyō’s writing revolves around conflicting worldviews typical of the Meiji period, that she scrutinizes, and upon which she elaborates, through a very specific device: characterization. While her familiarity with the classics is undeniable, it should be stressed that, in her literature, conventional motifs are systematically endowed with new meanings, a dynamic process that ultimately invites an empathetic reading of each character’s story; this particular outlook enables the reader to acknowledge them as figures embodying positions that contrast with, and are critical of the traditional structures and relations in which they are imbricated. This happens, for instance, in "Yuki no hi" (1893), a story underrated in mainstream scholarship but whose value lies, as I argue, in its being a transitional work and an early manifestation of Ichiyō’s concern with the paralyzing effects of social relations. My contribution focuses on two pairs of works whose characters provide a material, visible dimension to crucial notions of modernization: "Yuku kumo" (1895) and "Wakaremichi" (1896), a sophisticated meditation on agency, and "Utsusemi" (1893) and "Yamiyo" (1894), where the motif of mental instability helps illuminate the unconscious conflicts and traumas of the modern individual.