Talk:Murasaki Shikibu/@comment-25712820-20190206015214/@comment-33925214-20190206042849

Man, I really need to refresh my literary knowledge. It's been too long since I read a book in earnest.

Chapter 9 of the Genji Monogatari center's around the death of Genji's wife, Aoi no Ue (葵の上). Aoi is perhaps one of the more tragic characters in this play; constantly aware of the age difference between herself and her husband and constantly hurt by his constant philandering, Aoi somehow manages to put up with everything up until this chapter. In this chapter, Aoi is about to give birth to Genji's son when she abruptly gets possessed by a spirit. As a result of this possession as well as the horrifying pain of childbirth, Aoi dies, and Genji actually mourns for her and stops philandering for quite some time. Hitsuji-san, you were right about this chapter having no direct correlation to sealing demons, but I think the correlation lies in this chapter's contents-namely, Aoi's spirit possession.

In terms of literary analysis, this chapter is both gross, fascinating, and seriously horrifying. Murasaki was serious ahead of her time-if we compare her writing with Western literature (namely Beowulf, written at around the same time), Murasaki was eons ahead of her competitors. Aoi's characterization and her displeasure at her husband somehow reaches a climax at the spirit possession scene-besides the fact that Genji only actually finds her appealing when she is literally on her deathbed, the literary content of the spirit possession is controversial and the double reading is very similar to "nunnery" scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet, written about 600 years after. Genji's also really darn disgusting-after mourning, to cheer himself up, he literally rapes a minor. Dear God, this man makes me want to facepalm.

Also, Genji really needs to have some closure with his wife. God knows what emotional trauma she went through after being cheated on time and time again. This is the reason most of us hate NTR-it hurts for the party afflicted.