Ideal Families in Crisis: Official and Fictional Archetypes at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

The vernacular literature of early modern Japan describes a dizzying constellation of families. They look very different in the adultery stories of Ihara Saikaku, for example, the love suicide plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the ghostly tales of Ueda Akinari, the bathhouse conversations of Shikitei Sanba, and the historical fantasies of Kyokutei Bakin. Here I explore one version of the family that achieved prominence in commercial print around the turn of the nineteenth century. It is small, stripped to basic roles (father, mother, son, daughter-in-law, daughter) and beleaguered by hardship. It is also sustained by members, steadfastly devoted to one another,