ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the experience of modern women, Takahashi Takako, 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. Takahashi Takako also places her works in a general metaphysical atmosphere of sterility and extreme psychic tension. She has consistently explored the world of madness and evil, delving deeply into the realm of the subconscious, particularly of women. Her recent turning to Catholicism supplies the general philosophic framework for her protagonist's loneliness, fear of life, and the pursuit of the meaning of existence through 'sinning'. 'Congruent Figures', undeniably a masterpiece, dismisses maternal love as an illusion created by men. It presents maternity, the archetypal fate of female sexuality, as narcissistic self-attachment as well as self-hatred.
