Child's Play

While reading the biography of Higuchi Ichiyo alongside to her short fiction Child's Play, I found her life span to be unbelievably short and limited by gender expectations of 19th century Japan. Because she was female, society prevented her from receiving a well rounded westernized education like most middle class male writers. Ichiyo, who was forced to withdraw from grade school at the urging of her mother who argued that it was impractical for a girl to continue with schooling, was enrolled in a poetic conservatory by her father. Ichiyo became the sole breadwinner for her mother and younger sister following the death of her father when she was 17 and moved the family to the outskirts of Tokyo's red light district in 1893. She became pupil to fellow writer Nakarai Tosui, who was the inspiration behind her literary diary, "In the Shade of Spring Leaves" (1891-1896). Although her story Umoregi was the breakthrough story that won over the literary world, her 1895 work Child's Play, or Growing up, was considered her best work. I gather that the story came from her own experiences living on the edge of the red light district running a small shop in the alleys.

The story was very depressing to me, as if the children were all doomed to fall into the trap of determinism, where they were destined to end up with the same miserable fates as their families (Shota ended up being a pawnbroker like his dad, Midori a prostitute like her sister). After Midori was publicly humiliated by Chokichi, she "broke her pencils and threw away her ink; she would spend her time playing with her real friends." (1821). The story got a little hard to follow the more I read into it, but on page 1833, the part of the song that Shota sings reflects Midori's fate:

                 "Growing up,
                      She plays among the butterflies
                      and flowers.
                  But she turns sixteen,
                  and all she knows
                  is work and sorrow."

After Midori became a prostitute, her whole personality changed too. She was once very outgoing and considered Shota her best friend. By the end of the story, she no longer spoke to Shota and she grew quiet, never going out to play with her friends again. The process of growing up took away her innocence and she ends up behaving like someone half her age.