Men and Women of The Heian Court

The Tale of Genji is believed to be have been mostly written by Murasaki Shikibu (973-1014 or 1075) in the year 1021 during the Heian Period (794-1184). It is considered to be one of the greatest works of fiction and it talks about the ideal roles of a man and woman during the Heian period. It also allows the modern audience to see the culture differences between what was considered the norm during the Heian Period and what is considered the norm during the 21th Century. The Tale of Genji tells the story of Prince Hikaru Genji, son of the current Emperor at the time and Lady Kiritsubo, and how he matures from a young boy that has multiple affairs with women to a wise Emperor that begins to take responsibility for the actions that he made when he was younger. It is a critique of early Japanese literature and shows how women are treated as “objects” that serve men and men are the more authoritative gender that can have multiple affairs with women and can change a woman into his ideal image of a woman.

According to Tō no Chūjō, Chief Left Equerry, Genji, and the Fujiwara Aide of Ceremonial in chapter two, there are three types of women. The highborn, the middle birth, and the low born. The highborn are born into royalty and are constantly cared for by the people that surround her. Unfortunately because girls that are born into royalty are constantly surrounded by their peers, a lot about those types of girls remain unknown and the girls that are born into royalty may not deserve their rank. The middle class are born from governors or men that are not high enough to be considered royalty but not low enough to be considered a commoner. Girls that are born in the middle class must distinguish themselves from other women that were born...

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...erfectionist and she did not seem to show any interest in Genji until her final moments of life before giving birth to their child and then dying at the end of chapter nine. It was not until Aoi’s death that Genji finally begin to appreciate Aoi and started to treat women as more than just objects of sex and power. When Genji finally became Emperor at the beginning of chapter seventeen, Genji is concerned about the future of his country and only focuses on taking care of the current wives that he has in life. In return his wives do their best to take care of him.

Works Cited

Heian Period (794-1184 AD). Timeline of Japanese History. Timeline of Japanese History. 2011.

Web. 27 February, 2011.

Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. New York: Toronto, 2006. Print

“Summary of the Tale of Genji.” Taleofgenji.org. Taleofgenji.org. 2001. Web. 27 February,

2011.