The Parent-Child Relationship Theme Analysis

As The Tale of Genji follows multiple generations both within and outside of Genji's immediate family, the novel necessarily becomes acutely concerned with the relationships between parents and children. By exploring the ways in which children are allowed to form—or are kept from forming—relationships with their parents, as well as the innumerable instances in which Genji upends conventions guiding parent-child relationships, the novel ultimately suggests that parents are immensely powerful guiding forces in their children's lives. At the same time, it similarly illustrates how children have the power to help the adults in their lives simply by existing in the first place.

The cultural norms guiding the Heian courtiers dictate that children are extremely valuable for a number of reasons. In the cases of young Murasaki and Genji's son Yugiri, both children are described as "mementos" of their parents or other family members. Indeed, Genji is interested in ten-year-old Murasaki because she looks like her aunt Fujitsubo, whom Genji is in love with, while Genji's wife Aoi dies after giving birth to Yugiri. In this way, children provide a tangible way for their parents or guardians to remember lost loved ones or denied romances, which in turn makes the children themselves all the more valuable. Murasaki, for example, eventually grows up to be Genji's favorite lover and in doing so, is afforded a great deal of power. In other cases, children become the way by which women especially are able to gain political power or favor. Kokiden's power expands dramatically after her son, Suzaku, takes the throne, despite the fact that Suzaku himself is described as being a relatively ineffective and even sickly emperor. In other words, the merits—or lack thereof—of a given child often matter less than a parent's ability to use their child as a bargaining chip or as an in to take power for themselves.

The consequences, in turn, of losing out on a parent-child relationship are explored most fully through Genji himself, who loses his mother, the Lady of the Paulownia Court, when he's about three years old. When Genji is seven or eight, the Emperor brings a young Fujitsubo to court as a companion because she closely resembles his dead lover. Genji is allowed behind Fujitsubo's curtains and screens as a boy and, because of his constant contact with her and her resemblance to his dead mother, he soon falls in love with her. Genji then spends a great deal of time attempting to secretly woo Fujitsubo (with only one "success," in which he rapes her and she becomes pregnant with his son Reizei); after later discovering ten-year-old Murasaki, Fujitsubo's niece, he spends even more time "training" Murasaki to grow up to be his ideal companion—that is, to be in every way possible, a memento of his mother and of Fujitsubo.

Genji's fixation on recreating an image of his mother suggests the intensity of the bond between children and their parents—though it's also important to note that Genji is well aware that what he's doing with both Fujitsubo and Murasaki is questionable, to say the least, and wouldn't go over well with those at court were it to get out. This is why all of his overtures to Fujitsubo happen in secret, and also why he keeps young Murasaki hidden from other ladies for several years until she moves into the role of his favorite lover; he knows they'd be upset to learn he brought a child to court for this purpose. Taken together, this suggests that the loss of one's mother is something that a child must try (and inevitably fail) to make up for throughout their life—in Genji's case, through objectively unhealthy means.

In short, while children hold the keys to their parents' happiness and successes in life, a parent's presence in a child's life also fundamentally influences how that child grows up to conceptualize sex, romance, and their relationships to their own offspring later. In this way, the instances in which Genji shows his own children that he cares for them and is willing to support their ascensions through the court ranks—all of which also helps him—reinforces the novel's assertion that the relationships between parents and children are mutually beneficial and can lead to great successes for all parties, even when those relationships are unconventional or even unhealthy.