Description
Jun'ichirÅ Tanizaki and “The Tattooer”
Tanizaki was a Japanese Modernist who drew from the work of Gothic Romantics, including Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley. This is a result of a Western education. In reading “The Tattooer” dialogically with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the artist-as-creator trope becomes a prevalent theme. If we keep in mind Victor Frankenstein’s hubris, Seikichi's story further demonstrates the malleability of Shelley's narrative structure and creative artists' versatility in redeploying it. For instance, although Tanizaki works within a Western framework, his text undoubtedly carries Eastern themes—those of Japanese Aesthetics. Themes of Japanese Aesthetics include: “Mono No Aware,” or the impermanence of things—including how readers are able to readily identify the shift in characterization or writing style of the author; “Wabi,” which privileges the beginnings and ends of things; “Yugen,” or themes of the “dark” and “mysterious,” which is where Tanizaki draws from Gothic Romances; and “Sabi,” or themes of desolation and barrenness. Tanizaki' uniquely intertwines Shelley's narrative with these elements to create a new story that speaks to various aspects of Japanese culture, including gender constructs, geography, themes of sexuality, societal taboos and, of course, tattoos.
Tattooing is a Japanese cultural tradition that began around 5,000 BCE. We can deduce that Tanizaki constructs the setting in or shortly after the 1830s because the society of Edo isolated itself from the rest of the country and began holding tattoo gatherings suring this time. Tanizaki introduces Seikichi as a tattoo artist known for taking pleasure in inflicting pain on his clients--a portrayal that constructs him as a male authority figure. Seikichi says to one of his clients, "Ah, you are a stubborn one! But wait. Soon your body will begin to throb with pain. I doubt you will be able to stand it." This represents the tattoer's determination to bend to his will even the strongest men to exemplify how he dominates the scene. We find that Seikichi's fantasy it to "create a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman." In a marketplace, he falls in love with a geisha when he gazes upon her foot, and she eludes him for an entire year. In some parts of Japan the feet are considered to be the most intimate part of the female body--the equivalent to much of Western culture's fascination with women's breasts. Searching for this woman who captured his imagination, she happens upon his home on behalf of her mistress. Seikichi insists that he must create a piece of art on her so that he can empower her in the likeness of a painting in which a Chinese princess stands above and delivers judgment on a subject--execution by burning him alive. This is no flattering painting of an powerful female either, as it's meant to imply the barbarity and slow, painful death she deals in her judgment: "He was chained hand and foot to a hollow copper pillar in which a fire would be lighted."
We are not found wanting scholarship that positions Victor Frankenstein infusing--and losing--part of himself in his act of creation, and Tanizaki uses this aspect to heighten the Mono No Aware, Wabi, and Sabi aesthetics of the piece. As he tattoos a representation of a black widow spider on her back, Seikichi explicitly admits to "pour[ing] forth [his] soul into this tattoo," going on to say, "Today there is not a woman in Japan to compare with you. Your old fears are gone. All men will be your victims." In this way, the artist, by way of his imagination, has created a "monster," or a creature capable of monstrosities. This is where the Japanese aesthetics have a dominant presence within the narrative, as well--particularly, the geisha's transformation into what some critics argue is a femme fatale (Mono No Ware, Wabi, Yugen); Seikichi's "drained" soul (Mono No Ware, Sabi). Tanizaki magnifies the geisha's empowerment when the tattoo is complete and she's physically weak. She attempts to rise from a bathtub, falls, and Seikichi attempts to help her. She pushes his hand away, and Seikichi becomes entirely obeissant to her instruction. She tells him, "All my old fears have been swept away--and you are my first victim!" The short-story ends with a beautiful yet terrifying description of the geisha: "Silently the girl nodded and slipped the kimono off her shoulders. Just then her respendently tattooed back caught a ray of sunlight and the spider wreathed in flames.