History of the Geisha
Introduction
The events that occur in Arthur Golden’s “Memoirs of a Geisha” bring attention to the history of a Japanese Geisha. The protagonist of the novel, Chiyo Sakamoto is a fisherman named Minoru Sakamoto’s daughter. Chiyo lives in a “little town called Yoroido on the Sea of Japan” (Golden, 7). The journey of Chiyo becoming a geisha, named Sayuri, is told through the novel. This research essay intends to inform readers about the emergence of the geisha culture, the journey to becoming a geisha, and history’s role in “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden. An insight into history and culture, enlightens the world of a Japanese geisha.
Emergence of the Geisha Culture
Geisha appeared in the 17th century in Tokyo and
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Today there are as few as 1,000 to 2,000, mostly in Kyoto” (Toronto Star). Before WWII, becoming a geisha was a necessity. Many parents sold their daughters to geisha houses, known as an okiya. Chiyo had a similar fate. Chiyo’s father sold Chiyo and her sister, Satsu to an okiya through the hands of Mr. Tanaka Ichiro. Mr. Tanaka was the reason Chiyo became a geisha. Chiyo’s father had a sick wife and two daughters and he saw no other choice than to sell his daughters into the geisha world. This behaviour shows how circumstances can cause someone to take such desperate measures and turn selfish. Beauty is held at optimal importance in the geisha industry and Chiyo is considered more beautiful and is the one who ends up in an okiya. Satsu, on the other hand, becomes a prostitute in the district of Miyagawa-cho, but ultimately ends up running away. In Chiyo’s okiya in the Gion District, there is a Mother, Auntie and Granny, who decide if Chiyo is worthy of becoming a geisha or not. There is also a geisha who lives in the okiya named Hatsumomo. Hatsumomo is the antagonist of the novel as she does everything possible to prevent Chiyo from becoming a geisha. Hatsumomo falsely accuses Chiyo of stealing a brooch, having a boyfriend, ruining a kimono of a famous geisha named Mameha and much more. There is also another girl in the okiya, named Pumpkin. The okiya’s main objective is to take care of the geisha for a few …show more content…
If she is unsuccessful, like Auntie, she remains in the okiya. Sayuri’s journey is closely related to the journey of many geishas in history. Many geishas were sold into okiyas against their will. The Great Depression, an event in history is made reference to in Memoirs of a Geisha. During the Great Depression, the government shuts down all okiyas and many geishas are forced to work in factories, unlike Sayuri, who’s good friend Nobu, who is in love with her but never ends up being her danna, arranges for her to live with the Arashino Family and sew parachutes. General Tottori, Sayuri’s previous danna was no longer able to provide for Sayuri, which is why Nobu stepped in to help. The novel helps show how terrible the war really was and how people became accustom to watching for bombs in the sky. Sayuri eventually returns to become a geisha and ends up with the Chairman, but pays the price of losing her friend Nobu. This goes to show that the geisha culture is extremely competitive. The novel outlines all the skills that geisha are taught. These skills have always been associated with a successful geisha and Hatsumomo did not possess the skill of conversation. She bites a guest during a party and is kicked out of the okiya and becomes a prostitute, who live in separate districts than geisha. This separation could be a result of the Geisha
Sayuri was still known as Chiyo at the time of her first encounter with the Chairman at the bridge, who she believes demonstrates that “something besides cruelty could be found in the world” (108) simply for giving her ice cream and a handkerchief. Following this magical and life changing event, she vows to “suffer through any training, bear up under any hardship, for a chance to attract the notice of a man like the Chairman” (110). However, she understands that in order to overcome the limitations imposed upon her, she will need to sacrifice her individuality to fit the mold of how traditional geisha act, speak, and dress. She states, “Since meeting the Chairman on the street that day back in the spring, I had longed for nothing so much as
Throughout history artists have used art as a means to reflect the on goings of the society surrounding them. Many times, novels serve as primary sources in the future for students to reflect on past history. Students can successfully use novels as a source of understanding past events. Different sentiments and points of views within novels serve as the information one may use to reflect on these events. Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro successfully encapsulates much of what has been discussed in class, parallels with the events in Japan at the time the novel takes place, and serves as a social commentary to describe these events in Japan at the time of the Mejeii Restoration and beyond. Therefore, Kokoro successfully serves as a primary source students may use to enable them to understand institutions like conflicting views Whites by the Japanese, the role of women, and the population’s analysis of the Emperor.
Other research has devoted to unveiling the origins and the development of their stereotyping and put them among the historical contextual frameworks (e.g., Kawai, 2003, 2005; Prasso, 2005). Research has shown that those stereotypes are not all without merits. The China doll/geisha girl stereotype, to some degree, presents us with a romanticized woman who embodies many feminine characteristics that are/ were valued and praised. The evolving stereotype of the Asian martial arts mistress features women power, which might have the potentials to free women from the gendered binary of proper femininity and masculinity. Nevertheless, the Western media cultural industry adopts several gender and race policing strategies so as to preserve patriarchy and White supremacy, obscuring the Asian women and diminishing the positive associations those images can possibly imply. The following section critically analyzes two cases, The Memoirs of a Geisha and Nikita, that I consider to typify the stereotypical depictions of Asian women as either the submissive, feminine geisha girl or as a powerful yet threatening martial arts lady. I also seek to examine
This paper is a review of the book Japan’s Comfort Women-Sexual slavery and prostitution during WWII and the US occupation by Yuki Tanaka. This book was published in 2002 by Routledge. The book deals with the thousands of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other Asian and European women who were victims of organized sexual violence and prostitution by means of “comfort stations” setup by the Japanese military during World War II.
...Yamamoto’s ‘The Legend of Miss Sasagawara’.” Notes on Contemporary Literature 39. 2 (2009). Student Resources in Context. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.
Saikaku, Ihara. Life of a Sensuous Woman. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd Ed. Volume D. Ed. Martin Puchner. New York: Norton, 2013. 591-611. Print.
Throughout the story the author discusses how Toyo-o’s father and bigger brother scorn him for his irresponsibility and laziness, since he fails to take up any responsibility to help with the family business. This shows that, in the Japanese culture, a man is...
Ukiyo is a culture that strives to live a strictly pleasure-seeking routine. The largest flaw in this way of life, as Saikaku points out, is that its superficial nature forces people to live lives as meaningless and fluffy as its name, the “Floating World,” suggests. It is shallow in the physical sense, in that it focuses primarily on “beautiful” external appearances, and in the metaphorical sense, whereby individuals never really make deep-seated connections to anyone because of their addiction to finding these so-called pleasures. One particular character that Saikaku satirizes to embody this superficial nature of Ukiyo is the old, rotting woman found on the verandah in the episode of “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple.” He cleverly employs situational irony with this character to prove his point, as it is expected for the archetypal old woman to pass moral lessons to the younger generation. By the character’s own, sorrowful admission she claims that she “can’t forget about sex” and is going to “bite right into” (Saikaku 614) the protagonist; completely the opposite of what the audience expects her to say. This satire highlights the extent to which the Ukiyo lifestyle socially conditions individuals; the old woman is so far gone down that path that she no l...
Shirane Haruo. et al. Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900. New York: Colombia University Press, 2002. Print.
In keeping with the Ibo vision of female nature, the tribe allowed wife beating. The novel describes two instances when Okonkwo be...
...exiled to his motherland. Uchendu, his uncle, notices Okonkwo's grief and powerfully explains to Okonkwo how he should view his exile: "A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. And that is why we say that Mother is Supreme”. The only credit and fulfilment these women enjoy is motherhood. They receive respect and love from their children. They are strong for their children. Women are viewed to be very gentle and caring. They are expected to take care of their children with the best of their ability. Women are trusted totally by their children. This honorable portrayal of women is used by Achebe to identify women's role in the Ibo society. This portrayal is necessary to show that women indeed play an important role in society.
Before the war years, Kabuo's father, Zenhichi made an illegal agreement with the victim's father, Carl Heine senior. It was an agreement to an eight-year “lease-to-own” contract. Money changed hands, land was promised and terms were set. Unfortunately, the war came and the Japanese Americans were sent away to internment camp. Nothing was quite the same at wars end. When the Miyamoto has returned to claim their land, they had found out that the victim’s mother, Etta, cheated them. She sold their seven acres of strawberry land to another farmer, because of lack of the last payment during their removal. This disreputable action she took, was caused by her racist thoughts that she had toward Japanese. This has been demonstrated out in her conversation with her husband, she said, “We’re not such paupers as to sell to Japs, are we? For new clothes? For a pouch of fancy pipe tobacco?” (Guterson 119). Because of her being racist, it had cost the land of the Miyamoto and raised tension between the two families and created a motive for Kabuo to commit murder to Etta’s son as for revenge and to release his anger.
Sugita Kojo of Tayama Katai’s “The Girl Watcher” (1907) and the chair maker in Edogawa Rampo’s “The Human Chair” (1925) react to new ways of life in a similar, vulgar manner. Both stories include aspects of society new to that time: Trains and chairs, respectively. These pieces from the Meiji & Taisho period, a period where stories began to express the character’s thoughts, depict the importance of understanding novel and foreign aspects of daily life by showing how these modern ways of living may be used inappropriately.
In the collective society of Japan there is a certain stigma about women like Fubuki that set them apart. Choosing to work past the age of marriage is not necessarily the accepted (find a better word) in Japan because no matter the situation, collectivism and honor always come first. “Wish for work. There is little hope, given your sex, that you will get far up the ladder” (Nothomb, 1999, pp.66-67). She has worked so “far up the ladder”, so far up from what society said she should do, and it makes Fubuki is one of the biggest faces of individualism and hypocrisy shown throughout Fear and Trembling and the first time the reader see this is when Amélie and Tenshi were reported for their wrong doings. “I can see why and I disapprove of your reasons,” she says “I’m the one who had some reason to feel indignant about your attitude. You had your eye on a promotion to which you had no right” (Nothomb, 1999, p.37). Her constant use of possessive pronouns creates a selfish-like tone. “I can see why I disapprove… I’m the one who had some reason to feel indignant” (Nothomb, 1999, p.37). And that selfish tone highlights the hypocrisy that can be found within the Japanese society despite their claim of being a collective society. Fubuki goes on to say, “I’m twenty-nine years old. You’re twenty two. I’ve been in this position since last year. I fought for it for years. Did you think you were going to get a comparable job within a matter of weeks?” (Nothomb, 1999, pp.37-38). The tone of victimization (?) is created and this is constant throughout the whole book, “Do you think I can’t see what you are doing? You made these incomprehensible mistakes to get your revenge on me!” (Nothomb, 1999, p.45). The use of (another phrase) the word “you” reader can also see that Fubuki constantly uses Amélie’s mistakes to make her seem like the victim.
In order to analyze how gender ideals in the Heian society were formulated and how they were expressed in the Genji Monogatari, it is necessary to have an understanding of the Chinese society from which they were derived. The Chinese works often alluded to in the Genji Monogatari are primarily from the Tang dynasty period of China(618-907AD), which formed the basis of the flourishing of Japanese culture during the Heian period.3 Therefore an analysis of Heian gender ideals must begin from the Tang dynasty court-life culture.