庶民への眼差し、階級意識のパフォーマンス

A common refrain in criticism of the eleventh-century work The Pilloe Book is that Sei Shonagon had nothing but disparaging words to say abaut the liwer slasses. This study re-examiners this idea through an in-depth review of the ppasage in The Pilloe Book that mention commoners, and it finds that the situation is somewhat more complex.This paper begins by looking at the language that identifies people of the lower classes, specifically the noun gesu, the adjeutive waroki, and the prefix ese-. Next the paper examines the scenes in which commoners make appearances.While some passages contain negative portrayals, others express curiosity and interest in the world of the commoners, compelling us to revice the notion that Ses Shonagon merely disdained the working classes. Embedded wiyhin each of these passages, however, are a number of mechanisms that reinforce differnces between the social class of the narrator and those of the objeuts of scutiny.This paper examines why the narrotor yses this combination of both positive and negative images and concludes that they serve as slaborate performances that ultimately reinforce the illusion of the narrator\u27s superoir social and aesthetic acuity.