Women’s In-jokes in Heian Japan: Makura no soshi
Gergana Ivanova
University of British Columbia

In this study, I address the issue of women’s humour and laughter in Heian Japan,
particularly as handled in Sei Shonago n’ s Makura no soshi, a key text in the tradition of
women’s writing and reading. Despite the sighing and lamentation that dominate Heian
literature, and the declining political influence of the court in which the author serves as a
lady-in-waiting, Sei creates a narrative saturated with humour and laughter. Tears
women usually shed are replaced by exuberant laughter and jokes, especially in passages
that recount moments of intense vulnerability and instability for the female attendants to
empress Teishi. By examining some of the scenes in which women laugh in unison, I
attempt to identify the sources and functions of their laughter as represented in the text. I
also argue that through laughter the author creates an image of the female attendants as

provocateur , and aims to subvert the literary convention of representing women as
passive, obscure the vulnerability of the ladies -in-waiting in a declining court, and
challenge the misconceptions about the socially active women as immoral.

At the beginning of the eleventh century a female writer, known as Sei Shonagon

清少納言 (966- ?), composed Makura no soshi 枕草子, a narrative centered around her
service at court. Shortly after Sei was recruited as a lady-in-waiting in 993, her patron,
Empress Teishi 定子(977-1000), began to lose influence in palace politics, and her salon
underwent years of despair and humiliation. Nonetheless, in her accounts Sei imbues her
reality with an optimistic and elated tone. Moreover, in contrast with the literary

1

discourse of lamentation prevalent in the Heian period ( 794-1185), Sei’s version of her
court experience is saturated with humour and laughter. 1
Scholars of Makura no sos hi have attempted to analyze the frequent appearance
of laughter in Sei’s work by assigning it various functions. What has been left
unexplored however, are the numerous instances of women laughing in unison. In my
presentation today, I would like to re-examine laugher as represented in Makura no soshi,
in terms of its sources and its function, focusing specifically on the role laughter plays
among women. I will attempt to answer such questions as: W hy did Sei Shonagon
include so many instances of laughing women in her “ pillow book” ? W hat does it mean
when women are laughing as a group? Is laughter at men aimed to deride them or does it
signify something else? Finally, I will consider the question posed by Sidonie Smith and
Julia Watson, authoritative scholars in the field of women’s autobiography, “How does
the narrator win the reader’s belief and seek to have the “truth” of the narrative
validated?”, 2 considering the incongruity between the image of Teishi’s milieu as
constructed in M akura no soshi and the historical “truth” that other written sources about

1

Despite this do minant mode of expression, scenes of laughing characters can be found in other Heian

works as well. In her article on laughter, Ogiwara Saeko 荻原さえこ provides a chart of the instances of
laughter and smiling in the following Heian and Ka makura women’s diaries: Kagero Nikki, Izumi Shikibu
Nikki, Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, Sarashina Nikki, Sanuki no Suke no Nikki, Tamakiharu, Keireimon’in Ukyo
no Daibu no Shu, Ben no Naishi no Nikki, Nakatsukasa no Naishi no Nikki, Takemuki ga Ki, Utatane,
Izayoi Nikki, and Towazugatari . According to the chart, the diaries without even a scene of smiling or
laughing are Utatane and Izayoi Nikki . Those with the largest number of such instances are Kagero Niiki
(19), Towazugatari (16), and Murasaki Shikibu Nikki (14). To compare, in M akura no s oshi verbs related
to laughing and/or smiling greatly outnumber the instances in the women’s diaries considered by Ogiwara,
reaching 145 (according to Haraoka Fumiko, 93). In Makura no soshi laughter occurs throughout the work
and encompasses a wide range of characters across the hierarchical structure of the Heian society. See
Ogiw ara Saeko, “Towazugatari no warai,” Komazawa Kokubun 39 ( 2002) 265-288. See also Haraoka
Fumiko, “Makura no s oshi nikkiteki shodan no ‘warai’o megutte,” M akura no soshi: hyogen to koz o
(Tokyo: Yuseido, 199 4).
2

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives
(London: U of Minnesota P , 2001) 173.

2

the period disclose. 3 I will limit my study to the instances of laughing ladies-in-waiting,
rather than attempting generalizations about “ woman” as a gender category because of
the rigid division of the society into classes and the numerous socio-political factors that
shaped Heian women’s lives.
Through scenes in which ladies-in-waiting laugh together as a group that Sei has
included in her Makura no soshi, the author constructs an image of women that differs
from the notions prevalent in the male -centered society, and also emphasizes the
pleasures and advantages women acquire through court service. Her strategy of selfrepresentation, however, is striking: instead of portraying such women as modest and

thus countering the way they are perceived, Sei creates a n image of the lady-in-waiting as
provocateur. Thus the serving women who appear in the pages of Makura no so shi are
in stigators of jokes, women who enjoy humour and laugh heartily.
As part of their duties, female court attendants in the mid-Heian period interacted
with a wide variety of people and participated in social events (festivals, ceremonies, and

poetry contests). Thus they were visually more accessible than women who remained
outside court service,4 which entailed disparagement of their reputation in the eyes of
male courtiers. Such negative attitudes toward female attendants have been recounted in
one of Sei’s passages.
Women without prospect, who lead dull earnest lives, and rejoice
in their petty little pseudo-pleasures, I find quite depressing and despicable.

3

Some of which are Eiga Monogatari and Okagami.

4

Wakita Haruko, .Women in Medieval Japan: Motherhood, Household, Management and Sexuality, trans.
Alison Tokita (Tokyo: U of Tokyo P, 2006) 79. See also Joshua Mostow, “E no Gotoshi: the picture simili
and the feminine re-guard in Japanese illustrated romances, ” Word and Image 11:1 (Jan.- March 1995) 37-

54.

3

People of any standing ought to give their daughters a taste of society.
They should show them the world and let them become familiar with its
ways, by serving as attendants at the palace or other such positions.

I can’t bear men who consider women who serve at court to be
frivolous and unseemly. Though mind you, one can see why they
would…..there would be very few men who don ’t catch sight of us at
some point. And have you ever heard tell of a lady who served at court
shyly hiding herself from her own servants or others who came from her

house…
I can’t see why a lady who has served at court could be considered
less than suitably refined when she ’s later installed as someone ’s wife and
is treated with due respect. 5

This passage confirms not only the unfavourable perception of female attendants
but also Sei’s awareness of it. In addition to their vulnerable position within the court,
their instability increased with the decline of Teishi’s salon since the fate of attendants
was contingent on the political influence of their patrons. 6 And yet, it is precisely in
passages narrating moments of such intense vulnerability and instability for Teishi’s
female attendants that numerous scenes of laughing women emerge . Through laughter,
Sei attempts not only to obscure the disadvantageous situation of her patron during the

5

Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book, trans. Meredith McKinney (England: Penguin Books Ltd., 2006) 22.

6

Yoshikawa Shinji points out that the status of female attendants much improved upon their patron’s
promotion fro m a junior consort to an empress (Yoshikawa, 292). See Yoshikaw a Shinji, “Ladies in
Waiting in the Heian Period”, trans. Paul Atkins, Gender and Japanese History, eds. Wakita Haruko, et al.
(Osaka: Osaka UP, 1999) 283-312.

4

last five years of the tenth century, but also to rescue the reputation of the female
attendants by voicing their subjectivity with regard to their sexual objectification by men,
and by emphasizing their prowesses cultivated through court service.
The phenomena of humour and laughter have proved to be difficult for
psychologists to fully define because “ [h]umour plays a myriad of roles and serves a
number of quite different functions,” and because “no classification has yet done justice
to the tremendous diversity of situations which can evoke laughter.” 7 Some of the
attempts to define laughter are illustrated by the following example: “laughter [can be
attributed] to triumph, relief from anxiety, agreement, sudden comprehension,
embarrassment and scorn”, 8 laughter can be categorized as “ humorous, social, ignorance,
anxiety, derision, apologetic and laughter in response to tickling,” 9 and “ laughter is
generally a response, it is just as much a response to non -humorous stimuli as it is to
humour stimuli”.1 0 In addition, humour has been viewed as expressing “ superiority and
disparagement,” “as a means of resolving incongruity,” and as being “elusive and
ephemeral.” 11 Experiments have proved that amusement and laughter are not identical,
as an amused person may opt out of laughing, and the situations in which one laughs are
not limited to amusement. 1 2 Apparently, humour and laughter are multi-faceted and can

7

Citation. Anthony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot, “Introduction 4 ”, Humour and Laughter: Theory,
Research and Applications (New Brunswick, USA , and London, UK: Transaction publisher, 1996).
8

Berlyn (1969) as cited in Chapman and Foot.

9

Giles and Oxford (1970) as cited in Chapman and Foot.

10

Champan and Foot, Introduction.

11

As summarized in Chapman and Foot, “Preface ” and “Introduction”.

12

Dolf Zillmann and Joanne R. Cantor, “A Disposition Theory of Humour and Mirth”, Humour and
Laughter (London: John Wiley & Sons, 1976) 80.

5

hold manifold functions depending on the situation. What are the functions, then, of the
numerous scenes of women’s laughter that Sei included in her Makura no soshi ?

In her insightful study of laughter in the memoir passages of Makura no soshi, i.e.
the passages in which Sei recorded events that had happened at court as one would in a
personal diary, 13 Haraoka Fumiko 原岡文子 divides such passages into “bright” 〈明〉
and “dark” 〈暗〉 sections, the former referring to those that describe events during the
regency of Teishi’s father, Fujiwara M ichitaka 藤原道隆 (953-995), and the latter
encompassing the episodes after M ichitaka’s death. She further considers the frequency
of occurrence of words related to “ laughing,” “smiling,” and “amusement” within each
group of passages, and concludes that in the “dark” passages, those that describe the
demise of Teishi’s salon, the author employs the adjective wokashi をかし (amusing)
and the verb warau わらふ (to laugh) much more intensively than in the “bright”
passages, as shown in the table below. 14

Periods

Total No.of passages

wokashi- related

wara u-related

emu-related

“ bright”

16

46

33

6

“dark”

35

77

84

4

Further, Haraoka explores the functions of laughter in each group of memoir
passages and argues that laughter during the “ bright” period incurs from exchanges of
jokes ( sarogoto 猿楽言 ) between Michitaka and high -ranking nobles around him,
13

Haraoka, 93-104.

14

Based on the chart in Haraoka, 103.

6

whereas in the “dark” passages laughter usually is directed at people outside Teishi’s
salon, or at Sei herself who is presented as one who is laughed at (waraware mono 笑わ

れ者 ). As a result, Haraoka asserts that laughter in Sei’s work is a narrative device
similar to fictionalization (kyok o 虚構) that has been employed in order to construct and
maintain a world of wokashi in the literary portrayal of Teishi’s salon.15

Next, M itamura Masako 三田村雅子 , leading scholar of Makura no soshi in
Japan, in her essay on the link between laughter and “narrating” (katari 語り ) as shown
in Sei’s work, 1 6 discusses laughter as a unifying principle within the text. She focuses on
the circumstances under which people laugh before and after Michitaka’s death. During

the “ bright” period, praise about Sei by the Empress or the Regent, which is usually
accompanied by laughter, is declared in her presence and never circulated by others. By
contrast, in the period subsequent to M ichitaka’s death, as M itamura observes, laughter
often occurs within the act of narrating, and is usually preceded by a verb related to

“ telling” (such as iu 言ふ “to say”, mosu 申す “ to speak to a superior”, keisu 啓す “ to
say to a superior”, kikoshimesu 聞こしめす “to listen”, katarau 語らふ “to talk”). Thus,
praise about Sei’s talents by a third party (mainly high-ranking courtiers) circulates
within the court. Gossip reaches the Emperor and then the Empress, who relates it to Sei
and the two share laughter. 1 7 By circulating rumours about the quick-wittedness and
eloquence of Teishi’s ladies-in-waiting, Sei attempts to attract attention to her patron, and

15

Haraoka, 97-101.

16

Mitamura Masako, “ Makura no soshi no ‘warai’ to ‘katari’”, Makura no soshi: hyogen to kozo (Tokyo:
Yuseido, 1995) 105-119.
17

Mitamura, 113.

7

thus creates an image of Teishi as a central figure, one that cannot be ignored despite the
fading radiance of her court. M itamura further notes that by performing as a jester (doke

道化 ) who fluctuates between being a subject and an object of laughter, Sei “appropriates
life,” and constructs a portrait of Teishi’s salon as thriving and powerful.
Now let us turn to women’s laughter in Makura no soshi. Two passages have a
common motif: ladies-in-waiting tease a male courtie r and when he responds, they thwart
him with their laughter. These scenes are described in the passages Daijin Narimasa ga

ie ni「大進生昌が家に」, known to English readers as “When the Empress M oved,”
and “It Was during the Abstinence of the Fifth Month” Gogatsu no goshojin no hodo

shiki ni「五月の御精進のほど、職に」 . Despite the purposeful avoidance of
chronology in Sei’s accounts, scholars have identified the actual historical events behind
the narrative, and specifically the former as referring to the eight month of 999 , and the

latter as describing episodes from the fifth month of 998. 18 In the episode “When the
Empress Moved” Sei distracts readers attention from the historical events that
necessitated the transfer of Empress Teishi to a residence not appropriate for the status of
her patron. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari 栄華物語 ( 1028-1034)),
however, informs us that the empress had moved to the house of Taira no Narimasa 平生

昌 (a Senior Steward who held a sixth rank post in the Office of the Empress’s
Household) 1 9 to await the birth of her second child, since she had been forced to leave her

18

Sei Shonagon, Makura no soshi, ed. Hagitani Boku,Vol. 2, Nihon Koten Bungaku Shusei Vol. 22

(Tokyo: Shincho, 1977).
19

Ivan Morris, ed. and trans, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, Vol.2 (New York: Columbia UP, 1967) 7.

8

usual residence following the exile of her brothers Korechika 伊周 and Taka’ie 高家. 20
Earlier that day, Sei had criticized their host about the humble dimensions of the north
gate of his house. Later, d uring the night, Narimasa determined to take advantage of his
position as a master of the house and enticed by Sei’s remarks, entered the room in which
the serving women are sleeping. Sei noticed him by the door and called everyone’s
attention to Narimasa. All the women burst into laughter and Narimasa left the room in
frustration.

In the second passage, “It Was during the Abstinence of the Fifth M onth,” Sei
relates the attendants’ visit to the bridge behind the Kamo Shrine to hear the song of the
hototogisu (cuckoo). On their way back to the Empress ’s Office, the ladies -in-waiting

stopped next to the Palace of the First Ward and sent a servant to call Fujiwara Kiminobu
藤原公信, the first cousin of the empress, who was a gentlema n-in-waiting. W hile he
was changing his clothes hurriedly, the women set off. Kiminobu ran after the carriage
and asked them to stop so that he could see them, but the carriage sped up. Realizing that
his chase would yield no fruit, Kiminobu eventually gave up and headed back home. The
ladies- in-waiting in the carriage laughed, and later when they related the story to her
Majesty, she also joined them.

The two episodes allude to a scene in Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari 伊勢物語 , 9th
c.) in which “several attractive ladies [who] were in service at a neighbouring imperial
establishment” flirt with a man famous for his amorous pursuits. 21 The women are
20

A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, eds. William H. and Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford, CA: Stanford U
Press, 1980) 208.
21

Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from Tenth-Century Japan, ed. and trans. Helen Craig McCullough
(Stanford, CA: Stanford UP: 1968) , 106-107.

9

identified as ladies-in-waiting to one of the daughters to Emperor Kammu (桓武天皇 r.

781-806).22 Considering the fact that male pursuit of a woman was the “ norm” in the
monogatari 物語 (romantic tales) genre of Heian literature, by alluding to a deviation
from the standard, Makura no soshi’s author hints on subverting literary conventions on
the depiction of women. In the romantic tales, the passive role assigned to women in
public life was carried into the intimate realm of sexual relationships. It was considered
unusual for a woman to initiate an affair, and although she could choose whether to reply
to a poem sent to her and thus encourage her suitor, or ignore a letter (and thus encourage
the suitor’s perseverance), with enough determination, a man would often attain his
amorous goals. As Joshua Mostow notes, women in the Heian and Kamakura periods
perceived themselves as characters of “the early fairy tales, romances, and novels [which]
were written by men with an aim to show girls how they should behave themselves…
demonstrating the wonderful things that would happen to them if they did, or the awful
things that would happen if they didn’t.” 2 3 W omen’s initiative in the episodes described
above, may be interpreted as a play on the kaimami topos in which, according to the
conventions, a woman is a passive recipient of the voyeuristic male gaze. A s Edith Sarra
suggests, when the gaze is reversed,2 4 it is the female who gains authority and control

over the narrative, the state of “ reality” in which the characters are placed. Building upon
Sarra’s observation that the Narimasa episode allows Sei to return the gaze of the men,

22

Tales of Ise, 225, n. 58- 1.

23

Joshua Mostow, “On Becoming Ukifune: Autobiographical Heroines in Heian and Kamakura Literature”,
Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers (The
New Middle Ages) , eds. Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho (U.S.A.: Palgrave, 2000) 45-46.
24

Mostow, 243-250.

10

thus refusing to create “ conventional figures of femininity, especially the image of the
heroine as passive recipient of transient, unstable masculine desire,” 25 I would like to

further explore the function of laughter in the scenes of women teasing men.
In an illuminating article, Margaret Childs argues about the dynamics of love
affairs in pre-modern Japanese literature, that “romantic love is frequently associated
with the impulse to nurture someone who is weak or frail or in distress in some way.” 26
Childs considers vulnerability as crucial in enticing male amorous desire. She points out

that in order for a woman to avoid unwanted sexual advances, “[b]ecause reluctance was
a convention,…[r]efusal had to be definitive and unrelenting,” 27 and asserts the adverse
effect that tears had when shed in such situations. Childs’ s approach proves helpful when
attempting to understand the scene s of laughing women in these two episodes. The
author purposefully depicts women who call upon men and then refuse to yield to them.
By presenting women as initiators of the exchange between the two sexes in the scenes
above, Sei plays on the stereotype of ladies-in-waiting as frivolous. Laughter, which
unlike tears, can serve as a powerful strategy of refusal, discourages men, and helps
create an image of the ladies- in-waiting as invulnerable. In addition, their flight (by
seeking the company of other women as in the episode about Narimasa, and by speeding
up their carriage as in the episode about Kiminobu) can be interpreted as a manifestation

25

Edith Sarra, “The Poetics of Voyeurism in The Pillow Book”, Fictions of Fe mininity: Literary
Conventions of Gender in Japanese Court Womern’s Memoirs (Stanford UP: Stanford, CA, 1999) 259.
26

Margaret Childs, “The Value of Vulnerability: Sexual Coercion and the Nture of Sexual Love in
Japanese Court Literature” The Journal of Asian Studies 58:4 (Nov. 1999) 1059-1079.

1060.
27

Childs, 1064.

11

of their refusal of the male desire for intimacy. 28 Thus, by creating an image of authority
and superiority of the ladies -in-waiting as a group, Sei obfuscates their vulnerability as
women as well as their marginal position as attendants to a patron whose salon is losing
political influence. Consequently, the functions of women’s laughter in these two
passages can be interpreted in the following ways: 1) to subvert the literary convention of

representing women as passive, 2) to obscure the vulnerability of Teishi’s female
attenda nts, and 3) to challenge the misconceptions of ladies-in-waiting as immoral.
The second set of examples consists of passages in which women attack men with

respect to improper conduct. The first one is the passage known as “ Masahiro Really is a
Laughing Stock” (Masahiro wa imijiku 「方弘は、いみじく」 ). Minamoto Masahiro
is a Chamberlain and subsequently governor of Awa Province. 29 His imperfect speech
often arouses laughter among women. He uses proverbial expressions inappropriately
and makes meaningless remarks at which everyone laughs. For example, he seems to
find the phrase gotai 五体 which he has overheard, extremely intriguing and unusual. He
is amazed at the use of the phrase which literally means “ five parts,” but is actually used
as an elegant expression toward one ’s lover instead of the ordinary phrase “ your whole

body.” Masahiro’s ignorance on this and other occasions is ludicrous and everyone is
convulsed with laughter.30 Another example comes from the passage “ Once during a
Long Spell of Rainy W eather ” (Ame no uchi wa e furu koro「雨のうちはへ降るこ

ろ」 ). Fujiwara Noritsune 藤原, a Secretary in the M inistry of Ceremonial, boasts about
28

Childs suggests that flight (w hich often included “retreat to inner roo ms and the company of other
women”) was a co mmon strategy to avoid unwanted male ’s amorous pursuits. See Childs, 1064.
29

Morris, Vol. 2, 55.

30

笑はるることぞ限りなきや.

12

his flair for composing poetry on the spot. Yet disappointingly, when the Empress
proposes a subject for a poem, he runs away exclaiming “ How frightening” (ana

osoroshi).31 One of the attendants informs the rest that because his handwriting in both
Japanese and Chinese is terrible, he tries to conceal it.

Laughter in these two passages originates from the discrepancy between the
men’s lack of sophistication and the stature of the official posts they hold. Through
laughter and judgment, the ladies-in-waiting exclude the two men from their group

because they have failed to meet the established requirements for taste and cultural
knowledge. The flip side of this negation is that it also emphasize s women’s education
and mastery of proper conduct. It is precisely because the women served a t court, that
they gained specialized knowledge and cultivation of their minds and hearts. Thus by
highlighting the advantages of serving in the Palace, women justify the nature of their
work and at the same time claim superiority over insufficiently educated males who
nevertheless have access to power in one way or another.
Finally, there are two instances of female attendants who laugh at commoners.
One is the passage “ One Day I was in the Apartment” (Sotsu no kimi no omenoto
migushigedomo 「僧都の君の御乳母、御匣殿」) which usually strikes readers for
Sei’s cruelty. A man whose house has been destroyed by fire approaches Sei and
complains about his wretchedness. Sei writes a ridiculing poem and gives it to him,
leaving him with an impression that the piece of paper indicates the amount of alms she
has offered him. Again, everyone laughs. In another passage, “It W as during the
Abstinence of the Fifth Month”, (mentioned earlier), women’s laughter is aroused by the

31

あなおそろし.

13

song of female commoners who are threshing rice. Indeed, it is difficult to accept this
type of humor in our time . However, ladies-in-waiting, like the female representatives of
the lower classes, were known as women “who uncovered their face and worked.” 3 2
Moreover, the two groups are marginalized in society in one way or another. Thus, by
laughing at commoners, ladies-in-waiting exclude themselves from the lower classes and

represent themselves as of a privileged position. Here again, laughter is a means of
asserting their identity as a group engaged in an activity that is the prerogative of a highly
cultured stratum of society. Through laughing at commoners and claiming no bonds with
them, female attendants also assert that working in the Palace is not shameful.
The common aspect s in all these scenes is that women laugh in unison and in each
type of situation laughter allows them agency and superiority. Laughter expresses
solidarity and creates a special bond among them symbolizing their power. Writing
allows Sei a space in which she can control the way women like her are represented. As

a creator of a n autobiographical narrative she provides her own version of reality. By
asserting that she recorded everything that “stuck [her] eyes and mind,” she justifies her
writing strategy which consists of selecting certain episodes and leaving out others. 33
The fragmented structure of her work in terms of chronology and narrative liberates her
to manipulate reality.34 To borrow Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s words, 35 in
autobiographical narratives “memory is a subjective form of evidence, not externally
32

Citation. Wakita, 81.

33

See Sei Shonagon, Makura no s oshi, eds. Matsuo Satoshi and Nagai Kazuko, Nihon Koten Bungaku
Zenshu 11 (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1975) 465-468.
34

Naomi Fukumori , “Sei Shonagon’s Makura no Soshi : A Revisionary History”. Journal of the
Association of Teachers of Japanese. 31 (Apr. 1997) 1-44.
35

Citation. S mith and Watson, 6.

14

verifiable, rather it is asserted on the subject’s authority.” The discrepancy between the
tragic socio-historical context and the optimistic tone of her work betrays the narrator’s
awareness of an implied readership. By recreating her experience as a lady- in-waiting
and by providing various kinds of evidence, such as rumours circulated by politically
influential nobles that reiterate her own views, poems that have been exchanged,
dialogues, etc., Sei-the-narrator expects readers to accept her version of the life in
Teishi’s court as authoritative. Through the immediacy of her narrative which is most
prominent in “ The Epilogue” passage of the Noinbon textual line of Makura no soshi,
and the intimacy she seeks to gain with her readers, the narrator attempts to convince the
audience that her accounts allow them genuine glimpses into the court life. 36
In conclusion, laughter flows throughout the text and by replacing women’s tears
found in monogatari narratives, it becomes a special feminine language that challenges

the misrepresentation of women in such tales. Unlike the monogatari heroines, female
attendants construct their identity as intellectually and sexually independent. In addition,
laughter empowers women to challenge the gender conventions of the day. Through such
an observable behaviour as laughter, they seem to refute women’s invisibility in Heian
society and “ [seem] to wish to establish other measures for judging women.” 37 No longer
objects but subject of laughter, ladies- in-waiting are able to assert their identity as
masters of proper conduct , holders of a privileged position that grants them access to
knowledge, and of having control over males’ sexual advances.

36

Gergana Ivanova, “Textual Variations of Sei Shonagon’s Makura no s oshi: Perception of the Text and

the Narratorial Voice, ” MA thesis, U of Toronto, 2006 .
37

Sarra, 248.

15

A society which is grounded on fallacy can only be challenged with a language
that, according to Julia Kristeva’s signification paradigm, originates from the semiotic
dimension and is unsignifiable, unintelligible, uncontrollable and ambiguous, like the
body drives. 38 Laughter transgresses the body and breaks boundaries. It is loud because

it comes from the margins and has to be heard in order to bring about change. Its
overwhelming presence in Sei’s text stands out as another aspect of the unconventionality
of the work, along with its non-linear narrative, open -ended structure, and transgressive
language.39 Or even laughter may be considered another aspect of the open-endedness of
Makura no soshi, whose functions are boundless. In any event, Edith Sarra’s words
referring to Sei, as “hers is the only dry sleeve in Heian Japan” 40 appear to me as a
precise metaphoric description of her narrative.

38

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Practice , eds. Vincent B. Leitch., et al. (New York, London: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2001) 2166-2179.
39

Ivanova, 33-48.

40

Sarra, 259.

16