Japanese Branch Report - 2011

Authors

Mizue Aida

Date of this Version

2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 43 (2012)

Comments

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

Abstract

On Saturday 3 December 2011, the Fifteenth Annual Convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Ferris University.

The morning session began with an opening address by Hidetada Mukai (Ferris University). Three papers were presented in the morning: the first two were introduced and commented upon by Hiroshi Ikezono (Yamaguchi University) and the third by Mie Abe (Shoin University).

The first paper 'Sensitivity and Materiality in "The Lifted Veil'" was presented by Mari Takumi (Tokyo University). She focused on Latimer and his supernatural ability to look into the minds of others and see the reality through his previsions, and she discussed the two different approaches to epistemology that can be seen in 'The Lifted Veil' when Latimer attempts to approach and identify the external world.

The second paper was 'The Framed Heroines and the Miniature in Eliot's novels' by Nana Yano (Shirayuri College). She analyzed the relations between the Miniature and heroines in Eliot's novels. The heroines are Milly in 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton' (1858), Caterina in 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story (1858), Dorothea in Middlemarch (1871-2) and Leonora in Daniel Deronda (1876). She concluded that the destruction of the enclosed (framed) picture, especially the miniature, suggests a release of heroines from the static and conventional world.

The third speaker, Masako Kimura (Kyoto Women's University) read a paper on 'Daughters Who Hunger for Affection in The Mill on the Floss and "The Moorland Cottage".' She examined the development of heroines hungry for the affection of their families - Maggie Tulliver in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Maggie Browne in Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Moorland Cottage' (1850) - in the context of mother-daughter relationships. She pointed out that Gaskell seeks understanding through bonding between women underpinned by mutual sympathy, while Eliot turns to a man who does not try to dominate women in the perspective proposed by Adrienne Rich.