Various Retellings of a Traditional Tale Found in Japanese Linguistic Culture (Part 2) : the Inaba no Shiro Usagi Tale in Elementary-School Textbooks Published by Tokyo Shoseki

摘要

This paper analyzes the literary and arrative characteristics of the retelling of the Inaba-no-Shiro-Usagi story contained in second-grade elementary-school Japanese language-education textbooks published by Tokyo Shoseki, and compares this retelling with other versions in similar textbooks used in Japanese elementary schools, including a previous retelling by the same author published by Hikarinokuni. Analysis revealed that the story had been retold so as to focus on O-Kuni-Nushi as the tale’s main protagonist. With little time spent describing the personalities, motivations and feelings of the story’s characters, this version instead simply gives each major event as the story progresses. However, one characteristic of this retelling is that it includes the prophecy given by the rabbit to O-Kuni-Nushi, and the relationship between these two therefore does not wind up simply being portrayed as “ a fool needinghelp” and “ the hero saving him.” Compared with alternate retellings of the Inaba-no-Shiro-Usagi story in other extbooks, the Tokyo Shoseki version offers a more straightforward retelling of the original tale, thereby conveying the mood and spirit of the Kojiki original.