Identity In Tanizaki's Joji

By championing modernity, Tanizaki’s Joji also facetiously contradicts the heroic subject invented by modernity. The conventional narrative wherein the protagonist rejects the modern world he was born into in favour of an identification with the past is transposed by Tanizaki who portrays Joji choosing to engage with the spaces of modernisation, by frequenting the cafes, dance halls and department stores with Naomi. In doing so, Tanizaki has created an embodiment of the restless youth of Japan, who dismiss traditional culture as obsolescent, a tiresome ‘set of formalities’.

Tanizaki’s later work Some Prefer Nettles, also addresses themes of identity. Published in 1928, the plot documents the stagnation in a marriage after several years of mutual disinterest between husband and wife. In a similar vein to Naomi, Tanizaki again uses a relationship as an agent to set up his plot and develop thematic intent. The main character, Kaname, is faced with a choice as to whether or not to continue the unhappy marriage. In the text, Tanizaki appears to …show more content…
A compact becomes a mirror reflecting the self, and Tanizaki’s Old Man is used to imply that in modern Japan, the focus on the exterior self is all-consuming. Tanizaki suggests an interpretation of an essential Japanese identity as being mired in a perception of indefinable self, a self of exterior surfaces which mask the reality. Tanizaki’s use of puppets becomes a clever metaphor for these surface realities. O-hisa, symbolising an idealised, artifactual femininity linked to an authentic Japanese identity, grows less credible as Tanizaki portrays O-hisa resenting tradition’s yoke. In one sense, O-hisa becomes a puppet, embodying a sentimental past and the rejuvenation of lost origins and identity, yet in another, could be regarded as a false prophet for the genus of identity Kaname