The plight of 'Single mothers' in the Japanese society as reflected in Hayashi Fumiko's literary works

Hayashi Fumiko (1903-1951) was one of the feminist writers of the modern Japanese literature. Her writings portrayed women from a unique perspective which was different from the mainstream writing of the age where women were portrayed majorly as emotional and dramatic beings, however the author explored the depth of women’s humanity, womanhood and the social injustices they faced living in Japanese society. Hayashi Fumiko wrote on various subjects like poverty, marriage, illegitimacy, post war Japanese society, single mothers and women’s struggle. Many of her works were inspired by her own experiences of life and through her works she emphasized on women’s right to choose and free will. Her post war works often depict the challenges in women’s life of the age and this paper focuses on her selected post war works which are centered on single mothers and shed a light on the plight of single mothers in the post-war Japanese society, their struggle and the hardships of raising children alone. This paper examines author’s depiction of single mother’s plight through literature and how the portrayal reflects the lives of single mothers in post war Japanese society.