Labor and Transformation: Noblewomen's Agency in Japanese Illustrative Narratives

This paper examines how Japanese illustrated narratives from the premodern to early modern periods portray noblewomen as both constrained by gendered norms and yet capable of exercising spiritual agency. Focusing on Kirishitan Monogatari, Taima Mandala Engi Emaki, and Dōjōji Engi Emaki, the study analyzes how women's devotional labor, suffering, and transformation are visually and narratively framed. Methods include close reading of texts and images, with attention to themes of weaving, almsgiving, pilgrimage, and metamorphosis. The analysis demonstrates that women's roles—often depicted as passive acts of devotion—also contain spaces of active authorship and religious creativity, from Chūjōhime's weaving of the Taima Mandala to the serpent-woman's transformation at Dōjōji. The paper argues that these narratives recast women's hardship as a karmic resource, granting them both redemptive potential and symbolic authority. Ultimately, noblewomen emerge not only as exemplars of piety but also as figures who complicate the boundary between submission and agency, showing how spiritual authorship can arise from within gendered constraints.