Eutopizing the Dystopia. Gender Roles, Motherhood and Reproduction in Murata Sayaka’s SATSUJIN SHUSSAN

Abstract

From the start of her career, contemporary Japanese writer Murata Sayaka1 has been writing novels that dismantle the existing politics of gender, family and sexuality through stories set in dystopian or surrealistic worlds. In Satsujin shussan (The Birth Murder) she depicts a society in which a person can kill another if s/he gives birth to other ten. Women are given a contraceptive implant at the time of their first menstruation, sex is conceived as an act of lust, and pregnancy occurs exclusively by assisted fertilization and is also possible for men through the use of artificial uteri. This paper proposes a textual analysis, arguing how Murata creates a feminist “reproductive eutopian dystopia” and breaks both the concept of reproductive body as exclusive to females and the concepts of pregnancy and motherhood. The novel will be explored from a feminist perspective.

Keywords

• Japanese Literature
• Utopia
• Dystopia
• Feminism
• Gender-free Pregnancy
• Gender Relations
• Artificial Reproduction