Tanizaki’s later work Some Prefer Nettles, also addresses themes of identity. Published in 1928, the plot documents the stagnation in a marriage after several years of mutual disinterest between husband and wife. In a similar vein to Naomi, Tanizaki again uses a relationship as an agent to set up his plot and develop thematic intent. The main character, Kaname, is faced with a choice as to whether or not to continue the unhappy marriage. In the text, Tanizaki appears to …show more content…
A compact becomes a mirror reflecting the self, and Tanizaki’s Old Man is used to imply that in modern Japan, the focus on the exterior self is all-consuming. Tanizaki suggests an interpretation of an essential Japanese identity as being mired in a perception of indefinable self, a self of exterior surfaces which mask the reality. Tanizaki’s use of puppets becomes a clever metaphor for these surface realities. O-hisa, symbolising an idealised, artifactual femininity linked to an authentic Japanese identity, grows less credible as Tanizaki portrays O-hisa resenting tradition’s yoke. In one sense, O-hisa becomes a puppet, embodying a sentimental past and the rejuvenation of lost origins and identity, yet in another, could be regarded as a false prophet for the genus of identity Kaname