Masks (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Fumi Ueda
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social
- Time of Work: The mid-1950’s
- Setting: Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: 1950’s, Love or romance, Literature, Poetry or poets, Pregnancy, Adultery, Revenge, Spiritualism, Japan or Japanese people
- Locales: Tokyo, Japan, Kyoto, Japan
Characters Discussed
Mieko Toganō, the daughter of the head priest at a temple in Shinshu and the wife of a banker. She is also a prostitute, a poet, and a teacher of poetry. She bore twins, a mentally retarded girl, Harumé, and a beloved son, Akio. When Mieko appears, her slow and grave gestures refer to another landscape that can be seen only with her metaphysical eye. The subtexts of the novel create the emotional ambience of Mieko’s character, both remote and involved at the same time. Mieko is compared to a large blossoming tree with a voice floating toward Ibuki and...
[The entire page is 640 words long]
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