Yei Theodora Osaki: Book Review

Yei Theodora Osaki (1871-1932) translated and published the tale of patriotic hero, Momotarō, in the year 1908 in New York, U.S.A. As detailed by Yei’s biographer and lifelong friend, Mrs. Hugh Fraser, Yei was born to a Japanese father and English mother, living for extensive periods in both England and Japan. One of Yei’s motivations for writing was to disprove the misconceptions of Japan that she discovered in the ‘West’. According to Dr. Ildikó Farkas whose area of research focuses on the history and interpretation of Japanese modernism, the ‘West’ was considered to contain various nations, often depending on context, but accepted by most as to include at least part of Europe and the Americas in the twentieth century. Within her book, Japanese Fairy Tales, Osaki herself admits that the Japanese folktales contained within are not literal translations, but rather told from an angle to interest young readers of the West. I argue that Yei Theodora Osaki’s 1908 version of “Momotarō, or Story of a Son of a Peach”, a Japanese folktale, helped shape and promote the national

Momotarō is raised by a hard-working elderly couple, who are awarded with a son for their tireless work in the hills and rice fields of Japan. Once he reaches his teenage years, he goes to fight the oni’s, or devils, who have been attacking his village. He defeats the oni, takes the devils treasure and returns home to his village and parents now labeled as a hero. This chronicle of events played exquisitely into Japan’s national project of the period. Japan wished to prove themselves as a strong and united nation among the western powers. When faced with Momotarō, the tale boasts depictions of the oni chiefs fear and submission of power. This theme of submission was meant to signify to the United States that Japan was a nation of strength and bravery, and certainly not inferior to the