Children's Play and Gender Performance: Motifs of Transformation in Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's "The Children" = 子どもの遊びとジェンダー・パフォーマンス: 谷崎潤一郎「少年」:におけ る変身のモチーフ

Abstract

Abstract:This article analyzes depictions of gender and play in Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's short story "The Children" (Shōnen, 1911) to show how Tanizaki, known mostly for fiction about adults, was influenced by the literary genre of shōnen-mono (stories about childhood). On the one hand, Tanizaki used tropes of shōnen-mono to capture a world that was disappearing from the literary and cultural landscape of the late Meiji period (1868–1912). On the other hand, he depicted characters that countered prevalent discourses about how children should behave as young model Japanese citizens that were being advocated through the modern educational system and the development of children's literature. He did so not to advocate for political or social change but to have a titillating effect on readers. Tanizaki's child characters can be read as prototypes for his later sadomasochistic adult characters, but they also move beyond them. I closely read "The Children," discuss critical responses to the story, and show the legacy of Tanizaki's shōnen-mono.