This chapter studies the impact of war, empire, and gender identity in shaping food values via the depictions of food and hunger in the works of famed novelist and poet Hayashi Fumiko (1903–1951). It argues that food and the act of eating serve as metaphors for the colonial and imperial relationships between Japan, its occupied territories, and its own occupation by US forces. In addition, Hayashi's attitudes toward national and imperial identity shift between her works. For instance, in Diary of a Vagabond (1929), the hungry heroine defies and critiques normative gender roles and middle-class values in her pursuits of work and food; as a war correspondent in 1938, however, Hayashi expressed patriotic attitudes in response to food scarcity and appeared to embrace prescribed gender roles.
L’adaptation cinématographique des textes de Hayashi Fumiko par Naruse Mikio
