Inscribing the Feminine: Kawakami Mieko’s Breasts and Eggs as Écriture Féminine

Abstract

This paper discusses Kawakami Mieko’s novel Breasts and Eggs (2012) as an exemplary work of écriture féminine or women’s writing. Situating it within Japanese and global feminist scholarship, the paper discusses hegemonic femininity as patriarchal ideals of idealized motherhood, passivity, and perpetuated heteronormativity often depicted in male authored canonical texts. It provides a more nuanced understanding of the motifs of the absence of fathers and motherhood/mothering. Through close reading of the novel’s prominent themes, the paper aims to deconstruct the hegemonic representations of women that are often found in contemporary canonical literary works. Moreover, the paper suggests that by relying on the écriture féminine, Kawakami uses intimate spaces to strengthen the marginalized voices, such as non-heteronormative characters, single mothers, economic precariats, etc. In so doing, she enables a fragmentary reading of the life stories of her characters and centralizes the very feminine-defined world by denouncing phallocentric thought.