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“How varied are the characters and the dispositions of women!”
This passage, from the protracted debate about women in “The Broom-Like Tree,” suggests the absurdity of trying to rank women by types. Not only do characters and dispositions vary, but the dizzying mass of difference means that any effort to create clear hierarchies or rubrics is destined to fail. Genji remarks to one of his friends that his relationship must have been difficult, and this comment could be equally applied to the effort the group undertakes in general. While some critics have suggested that the opening chapters of The Tale of Genji are less accomplished than those that follow, as they draw more obviously on existing narrative traditions, the fact that the main character sleeps though the discussion introduces a subtle assessment that encourages readers to understand these stories as stories about the failings of the male narrators, as much as the flaws of the women they evaluate. Lady Murasaki was surely aware of male assumptions about women and thus uses their own tendencies as the basis of a critique.
“Since my departure for this dark journey,
Makes you so sad and lonely,
Fain would I stay though weak and weary,
And live for your sake only!”
This is a poem that Kiri-Tsubo recites sadly to the Emperor in “The Chamber of Kiri.” Although she is almost breathless, she manages to console her devastated lover with these words of comfort. Death will separate them but, recognizing how heartbroken he is, she would subordinate her feelings—weakness makes her weary of life—to his, and continue to live merely for him. The conversation in “The Broom-Like Tree” might attempt to define the ideal woman, but with this poem Kiri-Tsubo indicates why hers is the character that both her lover and her son will seek in others. She is gentle and kind, willing to sacrifice herself for the person she loves. Because she suffers unjustly, attacked by jealous members of the court, her death is exemplary of one of the culture’s most intense interests—a kind of melancholy that the innocent endure—as her grace and beauty serve as standards against which other women can be measured, and invariably found wanting.
“There was, indeed, both in features and manners a strange resemblance between herself and Kiri-Tsubo. …[T]he illustrious birth of the Princess prevented any one from ever daring to humiliate her, and she uniformly maintained the dignity of her position. And to her alas! the Emperor’s thoughts were now gradually drawn, though he could not yet be said to have forgotten Kiri-Tsubo.”
The emperor is heartbroken after the death of his beloved but, as this passage from “The Chamber of Kiri” suggests, he manages his grief by seeking a woman who resembles his lost love as closely as possible. Princess Wistaria’s family is opposed to any alliance with the Emperor, given the torment inflicted on Kiri-Tsubo and the fact that Emperor himself was powerless to stop the attacks against her. However, she has resources that allow her to protect herself in both her dignity and her family’s power. Still, his attention is something to be wary of, as the interjection of “alas” suggests. Not only is she a substitute for a woman he still loves, but an alliance with him means she will always be liable to scrutiny and attack. The complication of romantic alliances for women is thus quietly underscored.
