메이지(明治)기 근대 여학생과 제국주의 담론

The Modern Female Student of the Meiji Era and the Discourse of Imperialism

本論文は、1905年の新聞小説である『青春』にみえる女性教育と帝国主義の言説を考察する。『青春』を、近代女学生の風俗と恋愛、結婚などに関する言説をナショナリズムの観点から読むことができる。 近代日本は、国民国家の良妻賢母主義と近代的な恋愛概念、また純潔イデオロギーや堕落女学生など多くの近代的な言説が語られていた時期である。メディアには女学生の教育の病弊と効用についても多くの議論があり、女学生の教育を非難する記事があったが、このような傾向は小説にも反映されていた。 『青春』の繁は堕落女学生であったが、一般的な女学生小説の結末とは違って、破滅せず、卒業後は独立し満州の教師になる。でも、このような内容は女性の解放を表象するというより女性教育に関する矛盾的な言説を反映したものとしてみることができる。また、男性視点の限界を持ったナショナリズム小説の特徴を持つが、これは新聞の発行部数が重要であった流行小説の限界でもあるといえる。

This study aims at examining women’s education and the discourse of imperialism appearing in the 1905 novel Youth. The novel reveals the love and marriage of a ‘female student’, the discourse surrounding women’s education at the time, and the customs of the Meiji era. Modern Japan has always taken conflicting positions with regard to women’s education. Women were educated to be good wives and wise mothers but were also given the mission as teachers to teach Japanization to women in the colonies. In Youth, Shigeru was a profligate girl, but she avoids destruction to be renewed as a teacher upon her graduation, which is something vastly different from the general structure of female student novels. Nonetheless, it is difficult to view this as independent self-reliance from a true female liberation perspective. Youth still fails to go beyond a male-centered viewpoint, as the novel is closer to accepting the existing system rather than rebelling against the discourse of the era criticizing women’s education. Furthermore, its narration is woven in such a way that it more closely resembles the discourse of the era than any newspaper novel at the time. Influenced by nationalism, Youth served the role of reproducing the discourse of the era while reflecting the contradictory discourse about women’s education which was needed by both mothers and women. This was the limitation of popular novels issued in newspapers, which served a role in terms of education and discipline at the time.