Marking bodily differences: mechanized bodies in Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke's ‘Robot’ and early Showa robot literature

Abstract

Abstract With the introduction of the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek (1890–1938) in 1923, Japan witnessed a boom of literature about robots (jinzō ningen). Early Showa Japan was undergoing a rapid mechanization process where machines were incorporated into the modern landscape, and these robots became the epitome of the machine's power and authority. At the same time, however, they also produced considerable anxiety about the mechanization of the human body and its reproductive process. This article focuses on cultural historian Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke's short story 'Robot' published in Shin Seinen (New youth) in 1928. It situates this text within the scientific discourses surrounding women and their bodies in the Showa era, and shows how the text borrows the metaphor of the machine to raise key questions about bodily differences and female anatomy. Keywords: robots jinzō ningen machinesbodies in literatureeugenicsbirth control movement Acknowledgements An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 European Association of Japanese Studies Conference in Vienna, Austria. I would like to thank my fellow panelists and members of the audience at the event for their helpful feedback and insightful comments, and also the anonymous reviewers for Japan Forum for their constructive suggestions on improving an earlier draft. Miri Nakamura recently completed her PhD in Asian languages and cultures at Stanford University and will become Assistant Professor of Japanese at Wesleyan University from Fall 2007. Her dissertation examines the portrayal of gender and the female body in modern Japanese fantastic fiction. In particular, she is interested in how the notion of the monstrous and the feminine go together in Japanese literature. She may still be contacted at: [email protected] Notes 1. My understanding of 'mad science' differs from Kawana's, however, in that my focus lies on the specific gender and family dynamic within the genre, rather than on the undermining of science. Also, although she situates the subgenre within the category of henkaku tantei shōsetsu (deviant detective fiction), Hirabayashi was a vocal opponent and critic of that genre and cannot be considered as a henkaku writer. 2. Rakugo is a form of storytelling in Japan that dates back to the Edo period. It is often comical, and in that sense it can be compared to stand-up comedy or one-man plays. The storyteller typically sits on the stage and masterfully narrates the tale to his audience, using various vocal techniques and minor gestures. 3. British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane was the first to imagine an artificial womb outside the woman's body, naming it 'ectogenesis' (1923). He guessed that by 2074 ectogenesis would be the most popular form of childbirth.