The Tale of Genji: Difference between revisions

Note that despite sharing a name with the author, Princess Murasaki is ''not'' an [[Author Avatar]]. In fact, the author was named for the character after the fact, since, like many women from that era, her real name is not known.

 

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=== Includes examples of: ===

* [[Arranged Marriage]]: A very common custom at the time. Genji marries Princess Aoi shortly after his coming of age due to the high rank of the princess and the relations that his father wanted to build for him.

* [[Author Avatar]]: [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]], [[Values Dissonance|at least for modern audiences]]. As mentioned in the introduction, the author is named for the character Princess Murasaki, not the other way round. How far the two actually resembled one another is something lost to history.

* [[Everyone Is Bi]]: Several male characters are known to burst into tears upon seeing Genji, and Genji himself doesn't let a little thing like gender get in the way of his romantic pursuits.

** Of course, it should be noted that, at the time, attraction and love affairs between males - particularly if one or both of said males were physically attractive, as bishounen Genji was - were not especially scandalous, or even more noteworthy than a heterosexual affair (so long as certain social conventions were followed, like the requirement that the "passive" partner be a child or adolescent).

** Justified, since it was apparently rude in the Heian period to address anyone by their given names.

** Also, the sources of nicknames could be pretty tenuous. Genji's first wife, Aoi, is only known by that name because the chapter in which she features most prominently includes a poem written by someone else entirely, and having nothing to do with her, which mentions the aoi plant.

* [[Hidden Elf Village]] : The novel actually takes place in one ( incomparison to the state of Japan as a whole at the time).

* [[The Jeeves]]: Koremitsu, Genji's manservant, who usually ends up cleaning up Genji's various messes.

* [[Law of Inverse Fertility]]: Poor, poor Murasaki. Her Yamato Nadeshiko chops are sorely tested on this one. This is part of the reason why she is willing to raise Genji's daughter by the Akashi Lady as her own, since it's the closest she'll ever come to having kids. She does an excellent job raising her, too, to the point where she eventually becomes Empress.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]

** This even initially applies to Murasaki herself as she first came to Genji's attention because of her striking resemblance to Fujitsubo, the aforementioned concubine he's so obsessed with who reminds everyone of Genji's late mother.

* [[The Ojou]]: Most of the female characters fit this in some form or another, being noblewomen in the imperial court at Kyoto.

* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]

* [[Shotacon]]:

** In fact, the utter cluelessness of the Imperial household and the bureaucrats who served them, and their willingness to outsource their leadership tasks to hired warriors ("Samurai") whom they despised eventually led to the overthrow and downfall of the Heian court depicted in the Tale of Genji. An early Samurai actually appears in one chapter and is roundly mocked and despised for his lack of taste; it was actually a chapter frequently ''censored'' because the genteel courtiers couldn't stand even reading a description of such an uncouth person.

*** Genji is physically sickened by the appearance of the father of one of his many lovers, who was the governor of one of the rural provinces. His disfigurement? Tanned skin.

* [[While Rome Burns]]: While you don't actually see it, this was actually what the Heian court was doing. While Genji is off pursuing his intricate love lives, banditry and warlordism were wracking Japan, and would eventually lead to the Age of the Country at War.

* [[Wife Husbandry]]: Early in the story, Genji and some of his friends discuss the difficulty of finding the perfect woman, and conclude that perhaps the best thing to do is to raise her yourself. This is exactly what Genji later does with Murasaki. This example is so famous that it spawned the term Hikaru Genji Plan, which was formerly used as the trope name for [[Wife Husbandry]].