Reading Yoru no Nezame through Enchi Fumiko's Yasashiki yoru no monogatari: A comparative study

Despite it being written with the specifc aim of flling the largest narrative gap in Yoru no nezame (Wakefulness at night 1060-1080), Enchi Fumiko’s Yasashiki yoru no monogatari (Tale of a tender night, 1962) has not been yet studied in the perspective of an analysis of the complex relationships between the main characters of the Heian-period tale. Nevertheless, in both works scenes related to katashiro, mononoke and shukke, narrative devices typical of Heian-period narratives, all concur in developing the story’s protagonists’ characters and shaping a relationship in which they both show a certain degree of agency. The very fact that an expert in premodern Japanese literature as Enchi Fumiko chose to deal with katashiro, mononoke and shukke in her novel adds to my belief that those three narrative devices are to be studied as a set meant to highlight the peculiarity of the conception of ideal love relationship expressed in Yoru no nezame. The goal of this paper is therefore to analyze the role of narrative devices typical of Heian-period monogatari, namely katashiro, mononoke and shukke, in depicting a love relationship peculiar to Yoru no Nezame through the reading of Enchi Fumiko’s Yasashiki yoru no monogatari.