Abstract
From the late 1980s to the 1990s, feminist criticism peaked in Japanese literature. In response to this trend, some female authors depicted independent women who were not dominated by men in their works. However, the works of Amy Yamada differ from this trend. In her works, she depicts women indulging in sexual love with men. This is because she is confronting a different issue from feminist criticism. This paper analyzes Yamada’s NEWSPAPER, Fossil of Raindrops, DIET COKE, and R written in 1994. Women in these works are in sexual relationships with men and try to affirm their existence through physical sensations. For example, a woman in DIET COKE has desires “to be eaten” by her partner, which indicates not only her wish to become one with him but also her attempt to feel the contour of her own existence through the pain caused by being devoured. Additionally, the woman in R likens herself to a “rainbow” in the sense that her existence has been shaped by “thousands of different colors, smells, and sounds.” These characters seem to reflect the mentality of people in the 1990s. According to Hiroyuki Chida (2013), a specialist of pop culture, the youth in the 1990s had a problem of having indeterminate identities. This paper examines how Amy Yamada responds to this issue by depicting women who feel their existence through physical sensations and relationships with the opposite gender.
Author Information
Riku Matsuoka, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Paper Information
Conference: KAMC2023
Stream: Literature
This paper is part of the KAMC2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
To cite this article:
Matsuoka R. (2023) The Confirmation of Individual Existence Through Physical Sensations: The Representation of Heterosexuality in the Works of Amy Yamada ISSN: 2436-0503 – The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2023.56
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2023.56
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress