ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the experience of modern women, Hayashi Fumiko, with penetrating sincerity and honesty, but her philosophic profundity in understanding modern life, her intellectual capacity to view her experiences in a historical and social context, and her mastery of the art of fiction render the traditional category of 'female-school literature' totally inadequate to characterize her works totally inadequate to characterize her works. It describes a kind of religious persistence toward the family, a mode of life which could not be changed. Hayashi Fumiko was born in a lower-class family with a peddler as a father and a mother who was even more unconventional in her relations with men than Fumiko herself. Her works are often distinguished by their autobiographical portrayal of a woman equipped with a free spirit and great vitality. Her later short stories, however, including 'Narcissus' which appears in this chapter is pure fiction finished with artistic mastery.
