The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in Fairy Tales of Japan Book

Though Japanese tourists, businessmen, and products are everywhere visible, their culture still remains cloaked and mysterious. This book examines the haunting, sad, and lovely depths of the Japanese soul by interpreting some major themes in fairy tales. The first Jungian analyst in Japan and a senior professor at Kyoto University here addresses such questions as why so few Japanese fairy tales end in a "happily ever after" marriage, and why the female figure best expresses the culture's ego and the country's possible future. The author compares Japanese and Western tales, throwing into relief the former's idiosyncratic figures and themes. Terrible women who eat people, obscene escapes from the Oni (frightening but sometimes comic demons), brother-sister bonds, undersea dragon palaces, movements between 'worlds': with such elements does Kawai delicately present the multiple layers of the Japanese psyche.