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Desire and Duty in Two Japanese Stories
In-Class Essay Written by Zach Berry for ENGL 4220, Literature of the Non-Western World
Desire and duty, and the relationship between the two, plays a very important role in
Eastern writing. Duty can come in many forms but most often appears in duty to family or
elders, duty to country, or duty to cultural convention. In Mori Ōgai’s “The Dancing Girl” and
Higuchi Ichiyo’s “The Thirteenth Night,” the respective protagonists must find a way to
reconcile the dueling forces of their desires and the expectations that convention sets for them.
Higuchi Ichiyo’s “The Thirteenth Night” has a much more conventional setting in terms
of what duties are expected of a young married woman. The protagonist finds herself caught in
an abusive marriage to a man of high birth and, because of her duties to her son and her poor
parents, must bear the burden of unhappiness and verbal violence that, as she explains,
characterize her everyday life. The question raised is “How important is one’s own happiness in
light of familial obligation?” Through her conversation with her parents, it is clear that the
emphasis for her mother is on the personal safety and contentment of her daughter; however,
unhappy as he may be about the plight of his daughter, her father recognizes that breaking ties
with her husband would ultimately only lead to more suffering for the family. Not only would
she be giving up her only son but the burgeoning career of her brother would be at stake. Higuchi
Ichiyo suggests that duty to family, regardless of current situation, must take precedence over
personal desire, especially when the family is so reliant on a child’s obligations.
Mori Ōgai’s “The Dancing Girl,” though in a more unconventional setting than other
Japanese stories, emphasizes much the same values as does “The Thirteenth Night.” Though
frequently manipulated by those who track his studies and his career progress, the protagonist
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complains that those conventions are stifling and unrealistic. Despite that, it is initially his own
desires that lead him away from home to Germany, a fact that he recognizes when he comments
on leaving his mother behind and her age. Once his initial desire to be with the dancing girl is
realized, he succumbs to duty again and again, through the Japanese ambassador to Russia and
through his longtime friend who suggests his return to Japan. All of his desire for a relationship
with the mother of his child cannot overshadow the fact that the cultural conventions of duty, to
country and parents, are what ultimately motivate the protagonist. The irony lies in the fact that
he had actually started to construct something resembling a family in Germany, living with his
pregnant wife-to-be and her mother. These do not constitute a traditional “family” in his mind
and thus are not held to the same standards as a nuclear Japanese family; he feels no sense of
duty or obligation to people who have taken care of him and sacrificed for him.
Both of these stories present the dichotomous relationship between individual desire and
traditional duty in such a way as to suggest that duty takes precedence every time. “The
Thirteenth Night” presents the obligations to family in a much more traditional sense: Sacrifice
must be made to honor parents and husband and to provide for children. On the other hand, “The
Dancing Girl,” by using a very un-Japanese setting, upsets the conventions of duty to family:
instead of honoring those who were essentially family, the protagonist leaves them in a state of
decay, the young girl insane and pregnant. Ōgai seems to want to inject a sense of irony into the
story. Both of these stories present very different views on the opposing forces of personal desire
and duty in the lives of Japanese people.