According to Fujii Sadakazu, the authorship of Ochikubo monogatari is unknown. It is not clear even whether the author was a man or a woman. The tale is considered to date from the mid-980’s to early 990’s.14
Ochikubo, the name of the heroine, is derived from the place where she lives, which means a room at one level lower than others in the house. Her stepmother discriminates against her in favour of her own daughters. She therefore wears ragged clothes and is forced to sew almost all the clothing in the house. The stepmother treats her like a servant, leaves her behind when she goes on pilgrimage to Ishiyama, takes a treasured mirror box away from her, shuts her up in a storage room, and attempts to foist an old and amorous man onto her as a husband. However Akogi, Ochikubo’s maid, takes care of her and arranges for her a match with Shōshō who loves her. Shōshō rescues her and after their marriage takes revenge on Ochikubo’s stepmother, her half sisters and even her real father. For example, he shuts the stepmother into a small carriage, tricks a half-sister into accepting a simpleton as a husband, and appropriates the father’s house. In the end, however, he adopts a changed attitude, relenting and displaying generosity and filial piety.
Keene remarks that the western reader may miss the presence of a fairy godmother in a story that so closely resembles Cinderella’s. However, the tale is firmly anchored in the real world.15 Takada Mizuho 高田瑞穂 holds that Ochikubo reflects political power in the Heian period. He states that the theme of the tale is power used for revenge and support, focusing on the characterisation of Shōshō, and that the story of a girl ill-treated by her stepmother is only used for the framework of the tale.16 Hence the story can be read not only as a tale of an ill-treated stepchild but also as a tale of a man who achieves worldly success in the Heian period.
14 Fujii 1989, pp. 407-410.
15 Keene 1993, p. 447. 16 Takada 1979, pp. 1-7.
Table 4 shows the frequency of interior monologue assigned to each character in Ochikubo monogatari.
Table 4. The Frequencies of Interior Monologue in Ochikubo
<Male Characters>
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Total The length of the Part, lines in SNKBT 1493 1370 830 895 4588
The name of the character <Frequency of interior monologue> 1 Michiyori (Shōshō) 26 28 11 8 73
2 Michiyori’s father 4 4
3 Michiyori’s foster brother (Korenari) (Tachiwaki) 13 2 15 4 Ochikubo’s father (Tadayori) 1 7 9 3 20 5 Ochikubo’s elder half brother (Echizen no kami) 9 2 11 6 Ochikubo’s younger half brother (Saemon no suke) 2 6 8
7 Tenyaku no suke 1 7 8
8 Hyōbu no Shō 5 5
9 Hyōbu no Shō’s father 1 1
10 Kurōdo no Shōshō 3 3
11 Minister of the Right 3 3 12 Nakanokimi’s husband 1 1 13 Kokushi 1 1 14 Sochi 5 5 Gentlemen 1 2 3 Total 41 57 34 29 161 <Female characters>
The name of the character Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Total
1 Ochikubo 31 18 9 3 61
2 Akogi (Ushiromi) (Emon) 35 29 3 67 3 Ochikubo’s stepmother 18 13 7 9 47 4 San no kimi (Ochikubo’s half sister) 2 1 8 11 5 Shi no kimi (Ochikubo’s half sister) 7 2 6 15
6 Shi no kimi’s daughter 1 1
7 Nakanokimi (Michiyori’s sister) 1 1 2
8 Michiyori’s mother 1 1
9 Hyōbu no Shō’s sisters 2 2 10 Ochikubo’s half sisters (& brothers) 2 2
11 Sochi’s child 1 1
12 Michiyori’s nurse 1 6 7
Gentlewomen 1 7 7 4 19
The narrator 6 3 2 11
Total 94 83 39 31 247
The male characters have 161 passages of interior monologue, while the female characters have 247, as compared with 40 and 16 in Sumiyoshi. The ratio of the
frequency of interior monologue assigned to male characters to the length in Ochikubo is almost the same as in Sumiyoshi: 161/4588 (1/28.5) as compared with 40/860 (1/21.5). On the other hand, that assigned to female characters in Ochikubo is nearly three times higher than in Sumiyoshi: 247/4588 (1/18.6) as compared with 16/860 (1/53.8). The greater frequency of interior monologue in Ochikubo therefore affects mainly the female characters. Additionally, the percentage of the frequency of interior monologue assigned to female characters is higher than that assigned to male characters: 60.5% (247 out of 408) as compared with 39.5% (161 out of 408). Of the five tales, only Ochikubo has this tendency.17
Ochikubo has 26 named characters, as compared to 9 in Taketori and 5 in Sumiyoshi. The proportion of interior monologue assigned in Ochikubo to Akogi, to Michiyori’s nurse, and to the gentlewomen who serve other characters, is four times higher than that assigned to the gentlewomen in Sumiyoshi: 92/4588 (1/49.9) as compared with 4/860 (1/215). This suggests that, as tales evolved, they became more complicated in terms of the relationships between characters, including gentlewomen. Moreover, interior monologue by the narrator first appears in Ochikubo.
Among the male characters, Shōshō (Michiyori) has 73 passages of interior monologue out of 161, or 45.3%. More precisely, he has more such passages than any other male character in all four parts of the work: 26(63.3%), 28(49.1%), 11(32.4%) and 8(27.6%). Shōshō, the main male character, can therefore be also regarded as the central male character throughout the tale.
On the other hand, Ochikubo, regarded as the heroine in the tale, has fewer passages (61 [24.7%]) of interior monologue than Akogi, her maid (67 [27.1%]). Especially in parts 1 and 2, Akogi has the highest frequency of interior monologue, 35(37.2%) and 29(34.9%), as compared to the passages of interior monologue assigned to Ochikubo, for 31(33.0%) and 18(21.7%). The result requires that Akogi be regarded as the central female character in parts 1 and 2. This reflects the actuality
17 The percentage of interior monologue assigned to female characters is 24% in Taketori, 28.6% in Sumiyoshi, 40.1% in Genji and 38.5% in Sagoromo.
of the role of a gentlewoman as a mediator in the relationship between her mistress and a man. Of further importance is the characterisation of the maid Akogi. This ‘very sharp-witted girl’18 devotes herself to Ochikubo, who has never had a foster- mother or a guardian, and resists Ochikubo’s stepmother’s ill-treatment of her step- daughter. In the tale her love for Tachiwaki, who serves Shōshō, is narrated. Moreover, she arranges the match between Ochikubo and Shōshō through Tachiwaki. In terms of content, half of Akogi’s interior monologue passages in parts 1 and 2 (32 out of 64) concern the state of Ochikubo, and some of the rest express her feelings about Ochikubo. Akogi’s most impressive interior monologue passage in parts 1 and 2 expresses her wish to rise in rank and take revenge on Ochikubo’s stepmother:
我が身ただいま人とひとしくてもがな、報いせん (SNKBT: 89)
Oh, how I wish that I could make myself a person of influence in a moment so that I could have my revenge on them!19
She encourages Shōshō to take revenge on Ochikubo’s family despite Ochikubo’s own hesitation. Thus she is characterised as a woman who thinks, gets angry and acts on behalf of Ochikubo. Mitani regards Ochikubo as popular fiction for gentlewomen of low rank, because of its explicit evocation of Eros.20 He also argues that Akogi and her husband, Tachiwaki, should be regarded as the main supporting characters, since their roles are significant for the plot, and since the tale ends with the statement that Akogi lived to the age of two hundred.21
In part 3, the tale relates Shōshō’s revenge on Ochikubo’s half sisters, Shi no kimi and San no kimi. The frequency of interior monologue assigned to Ochikubo, Shi no kimi and San no kimi, is 9, 8 and 7, respectively. Therefore, the three women can be regarded as central female characters in part 3. In part 4, Ochikibo’s stepmother takes over as the central female character, since she the highest frequency of interior monologue.
18 Whitehouse and Yanagisawa 1971, p.2. 19Ibid., pp.72-73.
20 Mitani 1979, p. 71. 21Ibid., pp. 72-74.
4.1.4 A Quantitative Analysis of Interior Monologue Assigned to Each