Sara Mayans Padilla

VOLUNTARIA

The novel Breast and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, an acclaimed Japanese author,
is part of a new wave of feminist writing in Japan. Embracing realism, she draws
inspiration from Murakami, but now she challenges those male-centred narratives by
focusing on women. Her novels are for and about women. In Part 1, there is a clear
representation of the many issues and societal norms that women experience nowadays.

This novel can be classified clearly into one of the main regimes that Durand
differentiated. These regimes are segregated based on the movements of the body, the
body’s response to the mind; each of them has its own representing symbols, and all are
conditioned by the subject’s response to the passage of time.

First, the diurnal regime, the idea of ascension, creates the illusion of mastering
time, it cannot affect you in any way. It is related to the masculine, and its symbols
include phallic figures, the main one being the arrow. The nocturnal regimen is divided
into two: the digestive and the copulative. The digestive regime represents
disintegration, disappearance. Here, the posture facing time is to give in, to let yourself
disappear. The symbols are creatures of the night, the moon, fall and disintegration
among others. Lastly, the copulative or cyclic regime gives the feeling that we can
overcome the passage of time. It is associated with everything sexual and circular, also
very related to creation, either of something human, or objects like a flower, associated
with birth and therefore with anything feminine. Symbols include a circled arrow, a
belly, sexual elements, creation, and the sea, for instance.

The selected novel is a clear example of the circular regime, just by looking at
the title, Breasts and Eggs, without knowing anything about the plot, we can deduce in
which one belongs. In the first part of the novel, we meet the main character, Natsuko
and her three visitors, her older sister, Makiko, and her daughter, Midoriko.
 The book follows the story of Natsuko, a 30-year-old writer living in Tokyo,
offering a fresh perspective on motherhood. From the beginning, we see her fighting the
desire to become a mother while also confronting societal norms regarding what a
family should be. Despite being a single, asexual woman, Natsuko at the end,
challenges criticism and chooses to have a child. The novel's final paragraph illustrates
beautifully why it belongs to the circular regime, as Natsuko thinks about her newborn
daughter, symbolizing the creation of new life, while also incorporating the book's main
symbol, the breast.

‘’ I saw her for the first time. She was unlike anyone that I had ever known.
Unprecedented in my memory or my imagination. She was new to me. Her voice rang
through her body, loud as anything. I called to her, speaking in a voice that no one else
could hear. Where were you? You're here now. I watched her, this new baby girl, letting
her cry into my breast.’’ (Kawakami, 2020, p. 430).

Another key character in the story is Makiko, Natsuko’s older sister, a strong
and independent woman, but also very influenced by social expectations and pressures,
particularly those related physical appearance. During the first part, she doubts about
getting a breast augmentation surgery, strongly believing that it will help her personal
image and daily life. She introduces the discourse of breast and motherhood and
therefore many symbols of the circular regime. For instance, here is a passage of when
they enter a bathhouse, and see other women’s breast:

‘’ She pulled off the damp towel and pointed her bare chest at me. In a low voice that
made her sound like some kind of martial artist, she asked me: "Well?"

"Well what?"

"The color, the shape."

Some words came to mind- small and dark, but big in their own way-but I held off.
What would the other bathers think of this exchange? Two women splashing in the tub,
one glowering over the other with her arms akimbo, like a warrior. The best I could do
was nod repeatedly.

"Okay, forget about the size. I already know that," she said.
 "What about the color? Do they look dark to you? How dark? Tell me the truth’’
(Kawakami, 2020, p. 57).

Midoriko, Makiko's daughter, provides a new perspective on womanhood and

relationships between women. She is a teenager who has just stopped speaking, all we
know about her is through the diary she writes. Each entry allows us to see the
resentment she has for her mother, with emphasis on the idea of Makiko undergoing
plastic surgery. She believes that her mother's insecurity and obsession with breasts
began after she was born, because of the changes her body had after childbirth. Since
this character does not speak, she expresses everything through her eyes, another
circular figure and symbol of the circular regime:

‘’Idiot, idiot, idiot. My mum is an idiot. I feel like I've had this horrible pain in my eyes
since Tuesday. I can't keep them open.’’ (Kawakami, 2020, p. 93).

‘’All these things come in through my eyes, but how do they get out? As words? As
tears? What if those things stop coming? What if I can't talk or cry any-more?
Everything connected to my eyes will grow, get bigger and bigger, making it even
harder to breathe. Eventually, it's going to get so bad that I can't open my eyes.’’
(Kawakami, 2020, p. 103).

At the end of this first part, all the problems and traumas between mother and
daughter come to the surface when an egg cracks, another circular figure that makes
everything collapse when it is destroyed. Midoriko wants explanations from her mother
about the true reason for wanting that operation, while Makiko finally realises why has
her daughter stopped speaking and why she has so much hatred towards her.

‘’She took an egg in her hand and raised it high over her head. Here it comes, I
thought. In that moment, Midoriko started crying, her tears flying, gushing like they do
in comics, as she cracked the egg over her own head.

Splack. Yolk was all over the place. The egg was broken, but she kept smacking her
hand against her head, making her hair frothy with egg. Bits of eggshell dug into her
 scalp, yolky liquid dripping from her ears. She rubbed her palm across her forehead.
Crying harder now, she grabbed another egg.

"Why." she started, "do that to yourself ..." she spat out, breaking the second egg over
her head, same as the last one. Yolk and white oozed down her forehead. Without
hesitation, she grabbed another egg. "You're the one who had me," she told Makiko.
"And it's too late to do anything about that now, but why do you have to ..." Midoriko
slapped the egg hard against her forehead."I don't know what to do, and you don't tell
me anything. I love you, but I never want to be like you. No ..." (…) My eyes hurt. They
really hurt. Why does everything change? Why? It hurts. Why was I born? Why did any
of us have to be born? If we were never born, none of this would have happened, none
of it would__" (Kawakami, 2020, p. 139).

This novel accomplishes to portray different models and forms of motherhood,

illustrating three very different women at very different moments in their lives but
always around the idea of family unity. Breast and eggs has a circular structure,
especially in the first part, where Midoriko stops talking and the moment when all
collapses is when a round element, the egg, breaks making her face her problems and
speaking again. The second part centres in Natsuko, her whole storyline is cyclical as
we see her constantly debating motherhood. Early on she seems to be very convinced
about the idea of becoming a mother, but as the novel goes on, we see her doubt on
several occasions. The book ends in her ready to become a single mother and with the
birth of her daughter.

The constant repetition of circular figures emphasizes the natural course of life,
this regime values the passage of time. The characters don't fight against it or try to
conquer it; here, time is a circular line where nothing ends, it only returns to life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kawakami, M. (2020). Breasts and eggs. Pan Macmillan.