Schoolgirl Sex and Excess: Exploring Narratives of Japanese Girlhood and Compensated Dating in Ruth Ozeki's Novel A Tale for the Time Being

Headnote

Asian American novelist Ruth Ozeki's 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being presents a dual narrative of Japanese schoolgirl Nao, and fictional author Ruth. Ozeki problematises the schoolgirl image by embracing and subverting the stereotypical tropes of the Japanese schoolgirl through her exploration of the practice of "compensated dating" known as "enjo kosai." This paper examines how a novel intended for a Western audience depicts the iconic Japanese schoolgirl, specifically with reference to the practice of enjo kosai, which allows an exploration of the gendered and cultural influences apparent in Ozeki's writing of the schoolgirl persona while also challenging the ideas of enjo kosai that are often found in the media. A Tale for the Time Being presents two contradictory representations of this phenomenon which cyclically grip both the Japanese and international media outlets in a collective "moral panic": that of the innocent schoolgirl led astray into a world of sexual deviancy, and that of the subversive schoolgirl who deploys her limited resources to her advantage. By utilising an epistolary narrative style, the Japanese schoolgirl Nao presents a critique of the media's portrayal of enjo kosai, while also exploring issues of the hybridity of self and Japanese girlhood.

Introduction

Fiction provides writers with the freedom to explore the complicated nuances of social issues by creating alternative narratives to those seen elsewhere, such as in mainstream media. Ruth Ozeki, a JapaneseAmerican author and ordained Zen Buddhist priest, has a history of incorporating such alternative narratives into her works, and her most recent novel, A Tale for the Time Being, received widespread acclaim including being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. Despite this, the novel has had limited academic attention, perhaps due to the breadth and complexity of the issues the author has incorporated into the text. To date only a handful of articles have been written on topics such as metatextual performance, narratology, depictions of the Japanese military, and feminist ideologies relating to Zen Buddhist practices in the text (Davis 88-89; McKay 6; Starr 99). None of the research thus far has focused on the importance of the representation of the schoolgirl figure in the text, particularly from a Japanese studies perspective. This paper examines how Ozeki's use of a 16year-old female...