_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses ‘Fictions written in a certain city’: Representations of Japan in Angela Carter’s work Snaith, Helen How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Snaith, Helen (2018) ‘Fictions written in a certain city’: Representations of Japan in Angela Carter’s work. Doctoral thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa51160 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ ‘Fictions written in a certain city’ Representations of Japan in Angela Carter’s work Helen Snaith Submitted to Swansea University in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swansea University September 2018 1 Abstract In 1969, Angela Carter travelled to Japan. She lived there for two and a half years, returning to England twice during this time. When she returned to England for good in 1972, she had changed emotionally, romantically and sexually, with a newfound confidence emerging in her literature. This thesis investigates Carter’s time in Japan between 1969 and 1972. It focuses specifically on The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) and Carter’s collection of nine short stories Fireworks (1974). It also draws on Carter’s essays about Japan which were written for the New Society, the Statesman and the Guardian. The memoirs of Carter’s Japanese lover, Sozo Araki (2018) and the ‘Angela Carter Papers’ in the British Library also inform this work. This thesis is split four chapters that investigate how Japan is represented in Carter’s work. The first chapter assesses how the literary topography of the city evolves in Carter’s work in Japan, as she positions herself as ‘Other’, attempting to navigate and interpret the streets of a foreign city. The second chapter assesses the ways in which images of Japanese theatre appear in Carter’s short stories with specific reference to traditional bunraku puppet theatre and kabuki theatre. The third chapter shifts to a comparative analysis of Japanese literature, specifically between Carter and the Japanese author Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886-1964). The final chapter investigates Carter’s interest in Japanese cinema, specifically the work of Akira Kurosawa (1910- 1998), assessing the ways in which the techniques employed by Kurosawa are adopted and translated in Carter’s fiction. I suggest that Carter’s time in Japan exposed her to new aesthetic possibilities: her time abroad saw a shift in her writing style, her sensibilities and her understanding of her own Judeo-Christian culture. Peering through the looking glass perched on the edge of Asia, it was in Japan that Carter ‘learnt what it was to be a woman and became radicalised’ (1982: 28). Although alienated as ‘Other’, as a Western Caucasian woman Carter was permitted a position of privileged estrangement. Themes of Otherness, alienation, the real and the unreal, exoticism and desire are all bound up with Carter’s writing during this period. 2 Declarations and statements DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ NB: Candidates on whose behalf a bar on access has been approved by the University (see Note 7), should use the following version of Statement 2: I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access approved by the Swansea University. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ 3 Contents Abstract 2 Declarations and statements 3 Contents 4 Acknowledgements 6 Illustrations 7 Abbreviations 7 Introduction 9 ‘Gajin Gajin Gajin’: alienation and estrangement in Japan 15 The composition of Carter’s Japanese short stories 19 The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman 26 Shaking a Leg: Carter’s essays 31 Carter and Orientalism 34 ‘Is she fact or is she fiction?’ Using the Angela Carter Papers in the British Library 39 Breakdown of thesis chapters 43 Chapter one 50 Cities and space 50 Representations of cities and space in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) and the two stories, ‘Reflections’ and ‘Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest’ from Fireworks (1974) 50 Carter’s topographical narrative 51 Inside/outside: a comparison between the representation of interior space in Carter’s novels of the 1960s and ‘Reflections’ 56 Navigating Japan: Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin’s flâneur 61 Navigating the Metropolis: Roland Barthes’ Empire of Signs and Carter’s ‘Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest’ 67 Memory, time and rationality in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, Jorges Luis Borges’s ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities 77 ‘The River People’ and the Japanese language in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman 88 Unsustainable desires: a departure from the unknown 91 Chapter two 93 Theatre 93 Representations of Japanese theatre in ‘The Loves of Lady Purple’, ‘The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter’ (both in Fireworks, 1974) and The Passion of New Eve (1977) 93 The ‘art of faking’: performance in Japan and an introduction to the history of bunraku theatre 98 4 Angela Carter’s ‘The Loves of Lady Purple’ and Iharu Saikaku’s The Life of An Amorous Woman 105 Theatricality and performance in ‘The Loves of Lady Purple’ 111 Beyond ‘The Loves of Lady Purple’: bunraku and oral agencies 114 Performance, spectacle and incest in ‘The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter’ and Sigmund Freud’s ‘A child is being beaten’ 117 Gender performance in kabuki theatre and The Passion of New Eve 125 Conclusion 131 Chapter three 132 Literature 132 A comparative reading of The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972), ‘A Souvenir of Japan’ and ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ (both in Fireworks, 1974) alongside Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s ‘The Tattooer’ (1910), Naomi (1924), and Some Prefer Nettles (1929) 133 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s Western aesthetic, and the return to Japan in Some Prefer Nettles 138 Representations of the women in Tanizaki’s Naomi and Carter’s ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ 145 Images of the Grotesque: Tanizaki’s ‘Pink Lady’ in Naomi and Carter’s ‘Glumdalclitch’ in ‘A Souvenir of Japan’ 155 The art of irezumi: a comparative reading of Carter’s Heroes and Villains, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Tanizaki’s ‘The Tattooer’ 163 Conclusion 172 Chapter four 173 Cinema 173 A comparative analysis of ‘Flesh and the Mirror’, ‘The Smile of Winter’ (both in Fireworks, 1974), The Passion of New Eve (1977) and ‘John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ (1993), alongside Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and Throne of Blood (1957) 174 Representations of cinema in Carter’s work 179 Cross-cultural adaptations in Kurosawa’s work 186 The alienation effect in Kurosawa’s The Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai and Carter’s ‘Flesh and the Mirror’ and ‘The Smile of Winter’ 192 Cinematic montage in Kurusawa’s Seven Samurai and Carter’s ‘John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ 202 Conclusion 211 Conclusion 213 Bibliography 220 5 Acknowledgements Thank you to my team of supervisors, Dr Sarah Gamble, Dr Richard Robinson and Professor Julian Preece. I have been exceptionally lucky to have such an extraordinary team of academics help me shape my thesis over the past few years and guide me through to the final stages of completion. Thank you also to the kind staff at the Research Institute of the Arts and Humanities (RIAH) at Swansea University. Dr Elaine Canning and Helen Baldwin have been so supportive and