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“The mother of the first prince had, not unnaturally, a foreboding that unless matters were managed adroitly her child might be superseded by the younger one. She, we may observe had been established at Court before any other lady, and had more children than one. The Emperor, therefore, was obliged to treat her with due respect.”
This passage, from the opening chapter of the novel, points to what many readers might find a surprising feature of the representation of power in The Tale of Genji—the imperial throne does not pass automatically to the eldest son, or even child, of the Emperor. Not only was it possible for the Emperor to have more than one wife, or to replace his wife (as he does later when Princess Wistaria supplants Lady Koki-den), but he could also select someone to be both his heir and the heir of his heir. To guarantee her son’s status, in other words, Lady Koki-den must scheme carefully. She draws on her family ties, which demands respect even from the Emperor himself, and on her ability to manipulate the court, to protect his interests—and thus also her own and those of her other children.
“Regard him as your adviser, both in large and small matters, without reserve, and not otherwise than if I were still alive. He is not incapable of sharing in the administration of public affairs, notwithstanding his youth."
Even after Genji’s father abdicates the throne, he retains a great deal of power. On his deathbed in “Divine Tree,” he urges the new Emperor, Lady Koki-den’s son, to view Genji as a trusted advisor, someone in whom he can place a great deal of confidence. Despite his youth and his seeming frivolity, in other words, Genji’s intelligence and discretion are valuable to the throne in an unofficial capacity. Even more, the Emperor indicates that Genji has the skills to take on administrative duties as necessary. Although the reader gets no sustained sense of how public affairs were handled in Heian-era Japan from The Tale of Genji, the Emperor here establishes that personal qualities were key in the selection of advisors and administrators. His imminent death should not alter how Genji is perceived by the court. Even in this explicit advice, the characteristic indirection of Murasaki’s text is evident in the Emperor’s use of a double negative when describing his son’s capabilities.
“Fortunately this girl was promising from her childhood, and my desire was to present her to some distinguished personage in the capital, not without disappointment to many suitors, and I have often told her that if my desire is not fulfilled she had better throw herself into the sea."
As the above passage from “Exile at Akashi” makes clear, parents could hope to remedy their failure to move up the social hierarchy with their children. The priest of Akashi, formerly a governor and a relation of Genji’s mother, was thwarted in his own career but sees in his “promising” daughter a second opportunity for advancement. He raises her, then, with an eye to attracting a prominent man in the capital, even though they live in a remote coastal locale. The way his own ambition morphs into ambitions for his daughter is a variation on Lady Koki-den’s schemes to secure the throne for her son. But where she has powerful connections, the priest has fewer resources. Even though Genji finds his explicit ambition tiresome, especially given the extreme consequences he attaches to her failure, the priest does accomplish his mission because Genji and the young woman establish a relationship and she has his child.
“During the reign of this Emperor every care was taken on the occasion of all Court Festivals, so that future generations should hold that such and such precedents took their origin in this reign.”
At the end of “Competitive Show of Pictures,” Murasaki introduces one last way that status might be achieved—through memory and remembrance. The new Emperor (the son of Genji and Princess Wistaria) wants to assure that his reign will be known to history as distinguished, one that subsequent generations will remember and imitate. Status, on this model, is a function not just of the present but also the future. Given how difficult it is to differentiate the emperors in The Tale of Genji, and how short some of their reigns seem to be, the desire to be remembered indicates a shift in priority from immediate pleasure to future glory. This emphasis on the future mirrors the legacy of the character of Genji, whose importance to Japanese culture cannot be overstated.
