According to feminist critics, the “Images of Women” in literature created by most female writers lack “authenticity” and “real experience.” Susan Koppelman Cornillon, for example, states in “Images of Women in Fiction” (1972) that both male and female authors come in for harsh criticism for their creation of unreal female characters , and female writers are accused of being worse in this respect since they are betraying their own sex (Moi 2002: 42). However, Okamoto Kanoko2 was a feminist writer who shared her real experiences and provided a role model for a positive female identity in the form of main characters who are independent of men. In this study, I analyze , Boshijyojyō 『母子叙情』 (‘The Relationship between Mother and Son’)by Okamoto Kanoko(1937) to find out how her portrayal of the main character incorporates her own experiences describing the melancholy of a mother longing for her son. I also examine the question of whether “authenticity” and a “positive sense of female identity” truly exist in her work or not.
Searching for Female Identity in Okamoto Kanoko’s Boshijyojyō
