This thesis centres on a member of the rural elite, Suzuki Bokushi (1770-1842) of Echigo, and his social environment in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868). Through a case study of the interaction between one individuals life and his social conditions, the thesis participates in the ongoing scholarly reassessment of Tokugawa society, which had an apparently rigid political and social structure, yet many features that suggest a prototype of modernity. Bokushis life was multifaceted. He was a village administrator, landlord, pawnbroker, poet, painter, and great communicator, with a nation-wide correspondence network that crossed various social classes. His remote location and humble lifestyle notwithstanding, he was eventually able to publish a book about his region, Japans snow country. This thesis argues that Bokushis life epitomises both the potentiality and the restrictions of his historical moment for a well-placed member of the rural elite. An examination of Bokushis life and texts certainly challenges residual notions of the rigidity of social boundaries between the urban and the rural, between social statuses, and between cultural and intellectual communities. But Bokushis own actions and attitudes also show the force of conservative social values in provincial life. His activities were also still restrained by the external environment in terms of geographical remoteness, infrastructural limitation, political restrictions, cultural norms and the exigencies of human relationships. Bokushis life shows that in his day, Tokugawa social frameworks were being shaken and reshaped by peoples new attempts to cross conventional boundaries, within, however, a range of freedom that had both external and internal limits.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/211470 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | T.Moriyama@murdoch.edu.au, Takeshi Moriyama |
| Publisher | Murdoch University |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.murdoch.edu.au/goto/CopyrightNotice, Copyright Takeshi Moriyama |
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