In “Life of a Sensuous Woman” written by Ihara Saikaku he begins with the time period with a Domain Lord, whom was looking for a specific type of mistress. The narrator who is a young woman herself gets chosen for an interview and later then becomes the domain mistress. At his place she describe how everything was luxurious and very desirable. “ I’ve always been an unlucky woman, but with the lord I was fortunate.” She was delighted with her time with him and even found love in it, but it came to an end when he became weak and worn out. After being sent back to her parents house she realized he was unfortunate being that he couldn’t satisfy her. In her next journey with a monk she presents herself as a boy, a young warrior because that was the only way women could enter temples. During her time with the priest she was in an underground cell and only called up for sex whenever the priest wanted. “It was just a job, and there was no love in it.” She grew weak, depressed and lost interest in it all. The narrator schemes her way into going back to her parents house by claiming she’s pregnant and never returning again. “With this single body of mine I slept with more than ten thousand men. It made me feel low …” She now regrets everything she had done and was ashamed of herself. Controversially she grew weak and tired of her profession.
Life of a Sensuous Woman
February 22, 2017 Written by b.samura | 4 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
4 responses so far ↓
j.morreale // Feb 23rd 2017 at 12:25 am
“The Life of a Sensuous Woman” continues in the next section “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple”, which describes the woman’s experience as a sex slave for the head priest. She is conflicted about her situation, saying “Nothing gave me pleasure any more, and I gradually lost weight and grew weaker … Later I got used to the situation, and I even came to enjoy it.” The sensuous woman has competing emotions about being a sex slave because she both enjoys working as a sex slave and regrets her decision. At first, she did not enjoy being trapped in a tunnel but later yearned for the head priest to come and get her. The sensuous woman describes it as, “And when he went out at dawn to pray over the ashes of the cremated person, I felt as if we were saying good-bye to each other, and I hated for him to be away, no matter how short it was.” There is a shift in her feelings towards the head monk. She grew to love him, despite her previous reservations about their arrangement.
-Joseph Morreale
j.guzman3 // Feb 23rd 2017 at 2:27 pm
comment to j.morreale;
“I followed my desires wherever they went – and I ruined myself, the water will never be clear again.” This is something she says in the beginning to the two men to foreshadow where her lust for sex led her. As you said, the sensuous woman has competing emotions about being a priest’s sex slave because she both enjoyed it and understands it’s the opposite of purity. As the story progress is seem that her value diminishes from Domain Lords mistress to Sex Slave (to now undesirable street walker).
j.han6 // Feb 23rd 2017 at 9:58 pm
comment to b.samura
As b.samura stated, I agree partially with what he says, the woman lives in an underground cell in a worldly temple like a sex slave. Even though the woman has no love in making love with a priest at first, she has fun with the situation later. “Later I got used to the situation, and I even came to enjoy it. I found myself waiting up late, wishing he would come back” (Saikaku, 601). During her time in a temple, of course, she goes through not only a hard time with the relationship with a priest most of the time, but also a fun time occasionally.
j.moreno1 // Feb 24th 2017 at 3:38 am
j.guzman, you pick an interesting quote. “I ruined myself, the water will never be clear again.” This is a quote that shows that the narrator has come to a realization that she has committed mistakes throughout her life that may not be undone and that will forever be a part of who she is. This is a step in the Heroic Journey model, the self-realization step, and can be used to interpret whether or not the narrator is a hero. Personally, I think the fact that the narrator knows that she has committed mistakes and owns up to them exemplifies that she has accomplished the self-realization step.
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