Japanese Branch Report- 2009

Authors

Yohko Nagai

Date of this Version

2010

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 41 (2010)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

Overlooking the meandering Edo River and the panoramic view of the Tokyo skyline, the thirteenth annual convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at the scenic campus of Wayo Women's University on Saturday, 28 November 2009.

After an opening remark by Mizue Aida of Nihon University, a welcome address was made by Midori Uematsu, a professor of Wayo Women's University. This year we had the privilege of listening to four papers in the morning session. The first two papers were chaired by Akiko Kimura, of Waseda University and the last two papers by Itsuyo Shimizu of Kinki University.

In the first paper, entitled '''Mr. GilfiI's Love-Story" Reconsidered: Heroine Speaking Through the Eyes and Voice', Eri Yoshimura (Graduate School of Kobe College) focused on Caterina's symbolic dark eyes and how they manifest the heroine's strong will to liberate herself. Although Caterina's eyes, like her voice, present her vulnerability, they also reflect her volition most effectively. Ms. Yoshimura concluded that Eliot's depiction of Caterina's eyes presents her not as a heroine confined to a patriarchal social standard, but a heroine who will struggle and fight back to the end.

The second paper, entitled 'Maggie Tulliver's Walk of Physical Space: The Act of Her Will and Sense of Guilt and Privacy', was presented by Shinsuke Hori (Graduate School of Nihon University). While it is common to trace Maggie's moral progress, Mr. Hori examined Maggie's widening vision, the act of her will, and her sense of guilt and privacy through her movement in various physical spaces: the attic, the space outside home, Dunlow Common, Red Deeps, Mr. Tulliver's sickroom, and the bazaar. He concluded that the Red Deeps is the physical space where Maggie most influentially exerts her will.

The third paper, entitled 'The Influence of Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Renunciation on Eliot's Earlier and Later Works: The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch’, was read by Chiyo Fujiwara (Research Student at Kobe College). Critics in the past have primarily associated Schopenhauer with Eliot's later years, especially after 1872 when she read Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Idea). Ms. Fujiwara in her paper analyzed the influence of Schopenhauer on Eliot's earlier work, The Mill on the Floss, and her later work, Middlemarch, paying special attention to the heroines' plot of renunciation of the will.