japanese theory chapter

7/28/2019 Japanese Theory Chapter

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The Japanese wife is one of the most noteworthy movie by Aparna Sen, the

director of famous movie Mr. and Mrs. Iyer , revolves around the lives of Snehamoy,

his wife whom he never met, Miyage, and Snehamoys aunt Sandhya, the widow. The

film is based on Kunal Basus book The Japanese wife. The movie succeeds in its

effort to portray the situations and conditions ofthe complex Indian culture and

questions the norms of Indian society with reference to the feelings and emotions of

the characters towards each other. The questions of right and wrong seem to be

irrelevant in front of basic human situations.

In the movie The Japanese wife the character ofSandhya played by Raima Sen

succeed in her effort to show the mental turmoil situation of a widow. While

comparing to the real lives of Indian widows, Sandhya, the widow, in this movie bears

only the least consequences. Sandhya seems to be a typical Indian woman with full

vitality. Discrimination against widows has left thousands of women in West Bengal

resorting to prostitution and beggary to survive. In the dark, damp back-streets of

India, we can see the forgotten widows chant for their supper. For a few hours, their

prayers earn them enough meagre rupees to survive. These women were once revered

as mothers, sisters and daughters; some will die on the streets without seeing any

relatives again. This is the condition of the widows in West Bengal that Aparna Sen

portrays through the character of Sandhya, the widow in the movie The Japanese

Wife. Sandhya is seen as being widowed at an early stage in her marriage, she is thus

forced to lead the life of a cloistered widow throughout the rest of her lives. She is also

seen to be at the mercy of her in-laws who treat her harshly.


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"She becomes a zero and all her powers are lost," says Mohini Giri, the former

chair for the commission of women in India and a widow herself. She explains that

many conservative Indian families see widows as a liability. Cast out of the family

home, they live the rest of their lives in poverty and isolation. Sandhya is seen treated

very cruelly by her in-laws soon after her husbands death. The cruelty increases to

such a degree that she has no other choice but to leave her husbands home and to seek

refuge at Snehamoys house. She thus becomes the representative of all the Indian

widows. "When [a woman] loses her husband and becomes a widow, she loses her

identity. A woman deprived, abandoned, malnourished will naturally have a high

mortality rate." Sandhyas case would have been critical, with a son to care for, she

would have turned to prostitution. Without anyone to care for them, she might have

contemplated suicide. The terrible state of widows can be indirectly read from this

movie by Aparna Sen.

For the more than 40 million widows in India 10% of the country's female

population life is what some have described as "living sati", a reference to the now

the prohibited practice of widow burning. Some are as young as 10 years old and are

forced to spend the rest of their days in seclusion or earning a living through

prostitution. Sandhya is seen leading the life of a recluse; she is forced to suppress all

her emotions and feelings for the rest of her life and to lead the life similar to a nun.

On several occasions we see her admiration for Snehamoy, but being a widow who

cannot re-marry, she suppresses them. She is helpless and lonely and is faced with the

horrible life of loneliness till her end.


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Only 28% of the widows in India are eligible for pensions, and of those, less

than 11% actually receive their entitled payments. If a woman is not financially

independent, she is at the mercy of her in-laws and her parents. And if they do not

have the will or resources to take care of her and her children, she will be treated like

an "untouchable". This is so in the case of Sandhya who is forced to leave her in-laws

house because of several reasons. They are said to be cruel to Sandhya this is

explicitly said by Kunal Basu in his short story. The reason behind their forsaking

Sandhya is unclear, yet the reason might be their lack of funds to support her and her

son, or the lack of proper living spaces to shelter her. But we can easily realize the fact

that they start to avoid her only because they considered her as part of their family

only when her husband was alive. A widow thus becomes a curse, an object to be

loathed and to be discarded. The movie seems to be sending a message to the

authorities who have carefully omitted the case of widows in India; the plea is for

more support and help to rehabilitate widows. They too are human beings and are

entitled to every single right.

Many of the widows have no choice but to beg in the streets. Traditionally,

widows are only allowed one meal a day and renounce all earthly pleasures. Sandhya

has to suppress her emotions in the movie. She is to renounce all pleasures and to lead

the life of a nun. She is forced to take refuge in Snehamoys house because of her

helplessness and thus is a representative of widows who are helpless and miserable.

She would have been forced to beg in the streets if not for the kind Snehamoy.


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Traditions are manmade and are prevalent in society due to its widespread

acceptance in the social milieu a patriarchal society has enforced wrong values in

society towards widows. Nevertheless, trying to change the taboos surrounding

remarriage and widows' conduct is only possible if the government enforces education

to explain their harmful effects. The West Bengal has the highest percentage of

widows in India, primarily because of objections to remarriage. Aparna Sen, a Bengali

film maker might know better about the condition of the Bengali widows. Through her

character Sandhya she excellently portrays this problem in Bengal. Her plea seems to

be directed towards the Bengali people who have not changed their attitude towards

widows.

With a recent report conducted by the national commission of women stating

that 74% of destitute widows live in West Bengal, there is a clear indication that

implementing legislation has been unsuccessful. Widowhood is not a priority within

the government. It is only now that we are pushing the issue with the government.

Through such movies which deal with the issues of the oppressed Aparna Sen, Deepa

Mehta and a lot of other filmmakers seem to be trying to send this message to the

authorities and to the public. Widows are also human beings; they are to be

rehabilitated and to be made active participants in the working of the nation. Artists

too have a role to play in this regard, to educate the society on such social evils.

Aparna Sen can claim to have done an excellent job by treating such a topic in her

film.


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Ethics is a study of moral issues in the fields of individual and collective

interaction. The term is also sometimes used more generally to describe issues in arts

and sciences, religious beliefs and cultural priorities. The professional fields that deal

with ethical issues include medicine, trading, business, law, and etc. India has forever

been a land where marriage ethics are given much importance. The movie The

Japanese Wife also deals with such traditional marriage ethics popular in the country.

For this we have to analyze the relationship between Miyage and Snehamoy.

In India there is no greater event in a family than a wedding, dramatically

evoking every possible social obligation, kinship bond, traditional value, impassioned

sentiment, and economic resource. In the arranging and conducting of weddings, the

complex permutations of Indian social systems best display themselves. This kind of a

tradition is challenged by Aparna Sen. We can never claim if Miyage and Snehamoy

are married or not. It was not a normal marriage as such; there are no meeting of the

two families, no fixing of dates or venues for marriage, no wedding ceremony and no

feast as such. Can such a marriage be ever possible considering the marriage ethics of

our country? The most important thing is also that both Miyage and Snehamoy have

never even seen each other in person. This challenges the traditional notions of

marriage and is a criticizing of Indian marriage ethics.

Marriage is deemed essential for virtually everyone in India. For the

individual, marriage is the great watershed in life, marking the transition to adulthood.

In Snehamoy we find a character who takes great pains to keep his marital relationship


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intact and pure. We see that even when they have not seen each other, Miyage and

Snehamoy are faithful to each other.

Even as one is born into a particular family without the exercise of any

personal choice, so is one given a spouse without any personal preference involved.

Arranging a marriage is a critical responsibility for parents and other relatives of both

bride and groom. In the movie too we find Snehamoy asking permission from his only

relative, his aunt before he marries Miyage. He is thus following the traditions of

arranged marriage in a strict way. In the short story we find him being made fun of by

his friends when they understand that he is in love with a Japani, they ask him if he

will marry the Japani or select the girl whom his aunt chooses for him. Marriage is

thus not just a person issue it is a social issue.

Marriage alliances entail some redistribution of wealth as well as building and

restructuring social realignments, and, of course, result in the biological reproduction

of families. Such a concept is challenged by Aparna Sen. In the marital relationship

between Miyage and Snehamoy there is no meeting of the parties, there is no

household relationships and no possibility for the typical family life where there

would be offsprings to carry on the family to the next generation. Aparna Sen seems to

be saying that such a proposition is not necessary in marriage as such. People can be

happy even without the following of such traditions. Thus the Indian ethics behind

marriages is challenged by Sen.

In most of North India, the Hindu bride goes to live with strangers in a home

she has never visited. There she is sequestered and veiled, an outsider who must learn


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to conform to new ways. Her natal family is often geographically distant, and her ties

with her consanguine kin undergo attenuation to varying degrees. Sandhya and her

marriage can be remembered in this case where she is forced to leave her in-laws

house soon after her husband dies. This system forces women to find support only

from the grooms family, she has to suffer without questions and to kicked out on the

occasion which the in-laws deem.

Rules for the remarriage of widows differ from one group to another.

Generally, lower-ranking groups allow widow remarriage, particularly if the woman is

relatively young, but the highest-ranking castes discourage or forbid such remarriage.

The strictest adherents to the non remarriage of widows are Brahmans. Almost all

groups allow widowers to remarry. Many groups encourage a widower to marry his

deceased wife's younger sister. This is to be seen under the picture of Sandhya the

widow. If she would have been a man she could have easily re married, it is because

she is a woman she has to suffer throughout her life. Through the movie The Japanese

wife Aparna Sen questions the traditional norms of the society through the challenging

characters. In the movie Snehamoys aunt even compels him to get married to

Sandhya, the widow daughter of aunts friend. As an elderly person, Snehamoys aunt

is ready to accept the challenge of the society by standing in favour to the re marriage

of a widow. Even though, she does not succeed in her effort her attitudes towards the

social change remain note worthy till the end. This system of remarriage is challenged

by Sen.


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Almost all Indian children are raised with the expectation that their parents will

arrange their marriages, but an increasing number of young people, especially among

the college-educated, are finding their own spouses. So-called love marriages are

deemed a slightly scandalous alternative to properly arranged marriages. Some young

people convince their parents to "arrange" their marriages to people with whom they

have fallen in love. Read this with relation to Snehamoy who even when is in love

with Miyage, does not marry her until he asks permission from his family which is

his aunt.

In much of India, especially in the north, a marriage establishes a structural

opposition between the kin groups of the bride and groom--bride-givers and bride-

takers. Within this relationship, bride-givers are considered inferior to bride-takers and

are forever expected to give gifts to the bride-takers. The one-way flow of gifts begins

at engagement and continues for a generation or two. This tradition is to be seen when

initially only Miyage seems to be sending all the gifts to her husband Snehamoy. But

later on Aparna Sen challenges these notions by making Snehamoy also send gifts to

Miyage.

After marriage arrangements are completed, a rich panoply of wedding rituals

begins. Each religious group, region, and caste has a slightly different set of rites.

Generally, all weddings involve as many kin and associates of the bride and groom as

possible. The bride's family usually hosts most of the ceremonies and pays for all the

arrangements for large numbers of guests for several days, including accommodation,

feasting, decorations, and gifts for the groom's party. These arrangements are often


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extremely elaborate and expensive and are intended to enhance the status of the bride's

family. The groom's party usually hires a band and brings fine gifts for the bride, such

as jewelry and clothing, but these are typically far outweighed in value by the presents

received from the bride's side. This system is criticized by Sen through the characters

of Snehamoy and Miyage who marry, and remain faithful to one another even on

being separated, even when they have never seen each other or married in a proper

ceremony.

The idea of presence and absence can be used here to understand the ethics behind

the faithful relationship of Miyage and Snehamoy. In the movie the strong bond

between the unseen husband and wife stands above all the religious ethics and culture.

Even the fresh idea of remarriage of a widow that happens in the mind of the

protagonist aunt marks the search of new life and also it denotes the decline of certain

ethics in favour of the human being. According to Hindu culture, Marriage is the re-

union of two souls, but the physical presence in the marriage ceremony and its related

rituals had significant role in the lives of married couples. The marriage between

Miyage and Snehamoy lacks all these features but, the mental union in the absence of

physical existence plays a prominent role in the lives of both. While Sen does

manage to draw an evocative picture of main characters Snehomoy (Rahul Bose) and

Miyagi (Chigusa Takaku) the narrative feels a little drawn out at times and it does feel

like a short story which has been stretched into a two-hour film. Most of the

dialogue in this film is either in Bengali or heavily Bengali/Japanese accented English,

so it does get tedious to read the subtitles that appear suddenly. Sen has a great deal of


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affection for her characters. It can be felt in overall portrayal of the movie. Beside the

difficulties, the emotions can be really felt. There is such beauty, restraint and

minimalism in this akin-to-a-haiku film, it transports you into another world

altogether. One, where love can exist without consummation and togetherness can be

attained, despite spatial and cultural distances. The plot talks about Snehamoy as a

schoolteacher staying with his aunt in the remote Sundarbans area of West Bengal and

Miyage is an 18 year old Japanese Girl. They start as pen friends and slowly through

their letters, they fall in love. They decide that they will consider each other man and

wife, even though they are unlikely to meet. Seventeen years pass, when Sandhya, a

widow and her son come into Snehamoy's life. His love for Miyage is unflinching, and

yet he finds Sandhya's presence disturbing and develops a close bond with her son.

Sandhya too is clearly attracted but reticent; she is not seen wearing a white sari.

Word comes that Miyage is critically ill. Snehamoy is too poor to travel to Japan but

he consults every physician he knows just to find a cure for her. In the process his life

ebbs away. Miyage comes to India and she and Sandhya meet each other for the first

time both are in the widows' white... Snehamoy and Miyage build an everlasting

bond through a mere exchange of letters that manage to communicate their devotion

and longing for each other, even though they both are unsure of their English and are

bred in totally different cultures. But Snehamoy connects with his distant wife by

flying the beautiful kites she sends him and Miyage dons the bangles and drinks the

medicine her husband posts to her, hoping that someday they might be physically

together. It's an unconventional yet undeniable bond that is accepted by all and sundry:


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by Snehamoy's vivacious aunt (Moushumi Chatterjee), who does get hysterical

initially, by Sandhya, the silent and adoring widow (Raima Sen) and her young son

who seek shelter with Snehamoy and by the villagers too. And yet, like the mercurial

landscape of the Sunderbans, it's a bonding that is not without its turbulence too:

unfulfilled passion, deep desire, desperate longing. The life of human being is futile

without emotions, feelings, imaginations, and relationships. Mere social constructions

cannot give proper meaning to life. Snehamoy, the hero, and his pure love for his

unseen Japanese wife is the result of his imagination. It gives proper meanings to his

life. The presence of something as well as the absence saves the lives from the void

situation. The terms absence and presence describe fundamental states of being. For

this reason, they are difficult to define without referencing the terms themselves. The

Oxford English Dictionary definitions of both terms are self-referential: "the fact or

condition of being present" and "the state of being absent or away." The difficulty of

these terms stems from the fact that they are dependent upon the notion of being. The

Oxford English Dictionary cites the primary definition of being as "to have or occupy

a place ... somewhere ... Expressing the most general relation of a thing to its place."

According to this definition, then, being is not inexplicable or transcendent, but exists

within a framework or state. Therefore the definitions of presence and absence

explicitly rely upon the states within which they are found. At the heart of this issue is

the question of whether truth and presence are absolutely linked. For instance, in

Phaedrus, Plato argues for unmediated truth of speech over the mediation of writing.

The unmediated truth of speech comes from the presence of the speaker, while the


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writing mediates this presence. Therefore, representations in the form of images or

writing present presence through mediation. According to Derrida, however, these

mediated forms are the only available forms of presence because meaning cannot

appear outside of a medium. Derrida's critique of the metaphysics of presence

introduces a play of absence and presence. He states that "there is nothing outside the

text." In this way, his argument is similar to that of Aristotle who recognizes the

inescapability of representation. Without an outside of language, meaning can never

be completely present. Rather we are separated from signification by the necessitated

absence of linguistic forms. Through the examples of speech and writing, Derrida

demonstrates that it is impossible for signification to be absolutely present. In doing

so, he proves that only through mediated forms like language can one access

signification. Importantly, for media theory, representational absence becomes a form

of presence.

japanese theory chapter

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