Konjaku monogatari shū, compiled during the late Heian period (794-1185), is a collection of Buddhist didactic tales that offers insight into Japanese literary studies. Among the myriad of yōkai—Japanese spirits and supernatural entities—that appear within the anthology, kitsune, or foxes, are one of the most compelling and iconic creatures, challenging collective norms of gender, language, and religion. Kitsune appear in their original forms as foxes, but are closely associated with women, whom they literally embody through either shapeshifting or female spirit-medium possession. This intermixing of human and animal intelligence reveals the convoluted borderlands of human consciousness and citizenship. Although not mentioned overtly within Konjaku monogatari, the motivations of kitsune fall into two categories: sapping human men of their yang energies, and basic needs of sustenance, which undermine the human social collective’s safety. In analyzing three tales from the Konjaku anthology, I decode sexuality, religion, and gender through the specific representations of foxes in association with women and the responses they elicit in men. Within the didactic Buddhist framework and the larger philosophical societal foundation that guides these tales, women are seen as untrustworthy and unethical, whereas men are crowned as heroic agents who have the rational awareness to overcome women’s temptations. Ultimately, fox-related tales in Konjaku reveal the historically rooted concept of kitsune being utilized—at the end of one of the most the culturally significant and defining eras of Japanese history—as a motif to resubordinate women as beings of dangerous immorality.

Authors:
Nyla Schaberg, University of Colorado at Boulder, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Nyla Schaberg is currently a master's student at University of Colorado Boulder studying Japanese Literature. Her current interests include scent politics and representations of the female, particularly in the premodern era.

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