Angela Wong – Bewitched

This painting below shows two women walking under the umbrella. This scene caught me right away as it was one of the scenes in Ueda Akinari’s “Bewitched” where Toyo-o forcefully offered his umbrella to Manago and her maid Maroya as the rain was raining lighter. “And so Toyo-o saw her off as she spread the umbrella and left, watching until she vanished from his sight” (634). The women in this painting are wearing extravagant clothing which makes them stand out from the man behind them and their surroundings. “Her features, the way she wore her hair, her colorful robe, the perfume she exuded – all this. Toyo-o noted, made her bewitchingly voluptuous. With her was a pretty little maid of fourteen or fifteen carrying a bundle” (633). With the color choice which the painter has set, it is apparent that if Toyo-o was watching would immediately catch his attention. This painting somewhat gives an insight of Toyo-o sight of how he’s viewing Manago and Maroya. One of the detail that captured me was that the elderly man in the background seems not to notice the two women beside him, and so, one assumption which I came up with is that the elderly man cannot see them, just as in “Bewitched”, no one in the town knew these two women and have never heard of them. It is in a way ironic how they stand out amongst the crowd but yet, when others ask the people in the neighborhood, the people do not know about them.

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One thought on “Angela Wong – Bewitched

  1. Angela,
    Yes! This image is very evocative of the scene in which Toyo-o first encounters Manago. The quote you include here alerts us that, even upon first meeting her, Toyo-o finds her “bewitchingly voluptuous!” The rain is just the first instance in the story in which the appearance (or disappearance) of the demon is linked to changes in the weather.
    Nice job!
    JS

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