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Diary of a Vagabond

Hayashi Fumiko

Diary of a Vagabond: A Raw, Human Portrait of Poverty
mkemmer@middlebury.edu
Written during the boom of proletarian literature in Japan, Hayashi Fumiko’s Diary of a Vagabond paints a fictionalized autobiographical portrait of a life haunted by the grim, inescapable reality of poverty. Diary of a Vagabond forgoes an overarching plot structure, instead embracing — as its title suggests — a diary-like account of its female narrator’s ... read more

Written during the boom of proletarian literature in Japan, Hayashi Fumiko’s Diary of a Vagabond paints a fictionalized autobiographical portrait of a life haunted by the grim, inescapable reality of poverty. Diary of a Vagabond forgoes an overarching plot structure, instead embracing -- as its title suggests -- a diary-like account of its female narrator’s thoughts, feelings, and insights about living life under financial hardship. The narrative structures itself by seasonal time; Hayashi -- our narrator -- communicates through multiple diary entries each month, often explaining a new job or place in which she finds herself. Hayashi’s life is marked by transience. Since childhood, she has lived a nomadic life, unable to build a permanent home in one place due to the constraints of poverty. Throughout the story, a cycle repeats: largely alone, Hayashi struggles with money, she manages to find unsatisfying work, and the company of men provides no comfort. 

Besides Hayashi herself, the minor characters of Diary of a Vagabond are numerous and fleeting, echoing Hayashi’s transient presence in their lives. As a protagonist, Hayashi is a complicated character, but by unabashedly showcasing her raw humanity, she remains likable until the end of the story. Over the course of years, Hayashi pours out her thoughts onto the pages of her fictional diary. She complains, she laments, and she yearns to someday be able to make a living through her passion for writing. Although caught in the grip of extreme poverty, Hayashi still seeks to remain independent. She rejects the idea of marriage, preferring instead to forge her own life forward, unconstrained by the institution of marriage. Yet, in doing this, she embraces the societal cruelty that comes along with her status as  an unmarried, borderline destitute woman. As a reader, it is tempting to dive into the pages of the story and convince Hayashi to give up her independence for the stability of marriage. Yet, Hayashi and the narrative itself know that this is the wrong choice for her. She herself acknowledges that although she has been forced to live a nomadic life by circumstance, in her heart, she still longs to wander. Financial stability, if achievable, will make her breathe easy, but ultimately, Hayashi will never find true comfort in settling down in one place. Here, in all her complications and contradictions, Hayashi feels utterly human.

Holistically, my complaints with Diary of a Vagabond are minor. The story remains grim and largely hopeless until the final pages, but the bleakness present throughout is largely necessary. Poverty is cruel, and Diary of a Vagabond is unafraid to acknowledge this. Readers yearning for a rags to riches story will not find that here; instead, Diary of a Vagabond is a raw, realistic account of a woman’s lifelong struggle with destitution. The grim depiction of reality in this story offers may be unsatisfying for some, but for readers hungry to experience a unique, first-person account of the trials of poverty, Diary of a Vagabond is worth checking out. Ranking this story on a ten star scale, I would give Diary of a Vagabond eight stars out of ten.

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jenglish@middlebury.edu
How does the narrative structure contribute to the sense of the passage of time?
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rherman@middlebury.edu
This piece was widely celebrated by both the average person and the elite – why might this be? To what extent does this piece accept or critique existing social structures? How does characterization of the narrator reinforce ideas about class divisions?
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efelix@middlebury.edu
Diary of a Vagabond has no chapters, instead sections are split up by the months. Is there an intended reason for this?
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zhengqianl@middlebury.edu
Fumiko shows a strong emotional inclination towards self-destruction as she undergoes extreme poverty. But she never really let that impulse taking over her. Any other characters we have read so far display a similar kind of impulse to self-destruction? How do they respond (submit to or conquer) to such an impulse?
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xiyaoh@middlebury.edu
What role(s) does the lust for food and sex play in the narration? What do they suggest about Fumiko’s understand for existence, and how do they reflect the general dilemma of living of the working class?
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nyoshida@middlebury.edu
Diary of a Vagabond Question: Constrained by both social class and gender, how is her experience difficult from other female protagonists we have read about and how is it similar? What would you say she feels the most constrained by? Another question would be what is her view on relationships with men? Does she feel like she needs to be in one? Or does she subconsciously desire a happy romantic relationship? Overall, what is her stance on relationships with men?
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efelix@middlebury.edu
Q1: Diary of a Vagabond has no chapters, instead sections are split up by the months. Is there an intended reason for this?
Food for thought: In discussion 11/2 I was part of the group that was discussing whether we could consider Diary of a Vagabond proletariat writing. After finishing Diary of a Vagabond I would argue that it is not a piece of proletariat writing. This is because throughout Diary of a Vagabond we get remarks from the main character that do not express sentiments of proletariat writing. Further, I do think that Fumiko's intention is to write about working-class struggles, but only as it relates to Japanese women. For this reason, is this not proletariat writing because it posits that gender inequality is the reason for vast class differences and while this is true it does not embody the whole working class. However, if we define that proletariat writing is work that depicts the struggles of the working-class as it applies to different marginalized group's experiences, then I would be in agreement that this is proletariat writing. The latter is what convinces me that this is a feminist piece because it examines navigating life as a Japanese working-class woman. Further, this piece contextualizes the awkwardness of modern Japan's social hierarchy which ignored women.
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ejkim@middlebury.edu
From the bio, we see that Hayashi was in constant poverty and abused by men. In her work, "Diary of a Vagabond," we dive into her personal experiences. However, her work doesn't seem to be a form of protest against social injustice. Rather, we are given an account of the trapped lives of the lower class. In what ways does Hayashi differ from proletarian women writers of her generation?
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ejkim@middlebury.edu
Throughout the story, there is a pretty large amount of poetry. The text surrounding the poetry often doesn't have much connection to the contents of the poem; it almost seems to be the narrator's after-thought or daydream. In other words, the surrounding text doesn't really explain the meaning of the poem, nor does the poem provide insight into the actions described in the surrounding text. What might be the purpose of the inclusion of poetry throughout Fumiko's story?
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agclay@middlebury.edu
Fumiko is starved both for food and for love, yet she refuses allow a man to provide for her (which would, in theory, satisfy both emotional and caloric needs.) How does this comment on the relationship between men and money. Is money this masculine entity, etc?
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cdramos@middlebury.edu
How has poverty affected the narrator's romantic relationships so far in the story?
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mkemmer@middlebury.edu
Diary of a Vagabond is framed as a person account of a woman constrained by poverty and gender. How does its narrative structure - sections split by time spans instead of formal chapters - contribute to creating a lived-in, human story?
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mkemmer@middlebury.edu

 

Brown, Janice. 1996. “Hayashi Fumiko: Voice From the Margins.” Japan Quarterly 43 (1): 85.

Brown’s essay offers a condensed account of Hayashi Fumiko’s life and legacy as a Japanese female writer. Brown evaluates that, by focusing on the self and emphasizing the vagabond status of her female characters, Hayashi attacked patriarchal values and instituted her own unique dialogue of resistance into the fabric of Japanese popular culture through her writings. During Hayashi’s writing career, “the strong-willed woman determined to find her own happiness, whether alone or in partnership remained at the center of [her] writing.”

Lippit, Seiji. 2002. “Negations of Genre: Hayashi Fumiko’s Nomadic Writing.” Topographies of Japanese Modernism, Columbia University Press, 161.

Lippit explores generic conventions of Hayashi Fumiko’s Tales of Wandering, emphasizing the work’s mixing of poetry and prose that creates a nomadic quality of the writing. To Lippit, Hayashi’s writing distinguishes itself through “its lack of respect for borders and categories, but at the same time these formal characteristics also shape its thematic significance.” The shifting quality of Hayashi’s writing echoes the narrator’s own negotiation of space, inherently linked to gender, family, and class.


Gardener, William. 2003. “Mongrel Modernism: Hayashi Fumiko’s ‘Horoki’ and Mass Culture.” The Journal of Japanese Studies 29 (1). 69-101.

Through the lens of Hayashi Fumiko’s novel Diary of a Vagabond, William Gardner explores how the work acts as a both a personal and historical narrative account of modernity in Japan, analyzing how Hayashi negotiates her writings in the midst of the development of mass culture.

 

Gardener acknowledges that Hayashi Fumiko’s modernism neither stems from mass culture nor is directly opposed to it. Instead, Hayashi “shrewdly documents the development of a new mass culture, while boisterously disrupting the boundaries that would separate individual from mass, producer from consumer, and high from low.”

 

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