Monden, Masafumi. “Being Alice in Japan: Performing a Cute, ‘Girlish’ Revolt.” Japan Forum 26, no. 2 (2014): 265–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2014.900511. 

This article highlights the manifestation of Alice in Japanese culture. In Lewis Caroll’s works, Alice is only seven years old but despite her age, her heroine is portrayed as a character who is independent, emotionally flat, and autonomous. Often Alice is referred to as the picture perfect Shōjo-girl.  Shōjo was a term used to describe the hyper-feminine ideal at the time and is someone who is often represented in terms of girlish attire and presumed asexuality. This assigns a degree of independence to the category of adolescent girls separating them from both older and younger women. There is something to say about this dichotomous relationship between girlhood, womanhood, and sexuality and often gives undertones to a dark interpretive understanding of who this character is and what she represents in Japanese culture. One of Alice’s most alluring qualities is her clothing - that which instills a girly cuteness that is conservative in nature. This fashion underplays the eroticism that many associate with Alice and in fact can serve as an alternative to such a restrictive binary. Such is the case because emphasizing sweetness, demureness, and femininity without hinting at sexual allure or seeking the objectifying male gaze serves to repudiate the stereotyped representation of femininity as passive, compliant and powerless against the sexual objectification of women. We can relate this article to Mieko’s Rabbits as we can view Lily as an Alice-esque character; not only is she mature beyond her years but she represents the hyper-feminine ideal for her father. However, she diverges in her atypical fashion and actions. This may relate to the fact that she wears a rabbit costume, connecting themes of sexual desire with the costume and innocence with her Alice-esque character demeanor. We can critically evaluate Lily’s character with information from this article and paired symbolism from the text that allow us to better understand the meaning of the text as a whole.

White, Anna. “Merry March Hares and Rabbits.” V&A Blog (blog). Victoria and Albert Museum, March 10, 2014. https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/caring-for-our-collections/merry-march-hares-and-rabbits. 

To explore the main theme of the short story Rabbits, it is important to explore rabbit’s symbolism in literature. This source explores exactly that and is intended for an audience fraught with questions on rabbit meaning in literature. Rabbits have paradoxically been used as both symbols of sexuality and virginal purity. They have been a sex symbol since antiquity as representation of sexual purity and intimate connections. This makes the reading of Rabbits and the use of the animal make perfect sense. Lily is a young girl who is sexually involved with her father. She uses rabbits as her main connection with her father so much so that she dresses as one herself to impress him. This rabbit interconnection represents Lily’s antithetical character as an innocent young girl whose intimacy with her father is rooted in atypical sexual desires. Both her father and herself’s obsession with the rabbit ritual insinuates some deep rooted sexual innuendos referring to Lily’s purity as a child and the hypersexualized relationship between her and her father.

Professor, Deborah Shamoon. “SHŌJO.” Japanese Media and Popular Culture, April 17, 2020. https://jmpc-utokyo.com/keyword/shojo/. 

This source deals with the different definitions and characterizations of Shōjo. Shōjo is a term that works antithetical with itself; it both represents an image of an innocent teenage girl but also a sexualized female character. For men, Shōjo represents female characters that are both alluring and frightening. Out in public for the first time, the Meiji schoolgirl  represented the flower of bourgeois girlhood, but her Western education posed a real threat to male control of public and private life.  The Shōjo aesthetic represented both freedom and liminality for Japanese girls as the Shōjo years end with adulthood when the woman is expected to forgo her own pleasure and become a wife and mother. The Shōjo emphasizes the fact that adolescent years are limited and particularly for Japanese women a bittersweet adulthood will follow. The Shōjo is dichotomous in the way that it represents women who live beyond the male gaze but the tragic realization  that this does not last forever. This article is a super interesting read and delves into many interesting and different ways the Shōjo aesthetic is degraded and empowered. When we think about the story Rabbits in conjunction with this article we begin to question Lily’s association with the rabbit instead of the typical Shōjo schoolgirl. Her incestuous relationship with her father is hypersexualized and strips her of her innocence as a child. This plays interestingly into the role of an atypical Shōjo character. Lily’s young age reflects the innocence of a child, but this is convoluted with the sexual themes that surround her character; two opposing themes that could seemingly connect to the antithetical nature of Shōjo representation.

Larry. “Food and Sex in Children's Literature.” SLAP HAPPY LARRY, November 3, 2021. https://www.slaphappylarry.com/food-children-literature-fiction/. 

In this short article we explore food’s meaning in literature - a constant theme throughout Mikeo’s Rabbits. Food in the story is used as an innuendo for sex and as we read this article we explore the apparent relationship between food and sexual desire. Food in literature is often used as a representation of human pleasure in life, insinuating the hedonistic nature of the human species. Glutton and greed are typical motifs in literature and are often followed by punishment. We see this expertly produced in Rabbits. The sexual desires between Lily and her dad are represented by the gluttonous nature of the meals they eat together and albeit wrong it is the insatiable desire of Lily and her dad to partake in these meals in order to satisfy their cravings and bring them pleasure. These meals continue throughout the story but in the end the one thing bridging them together is ultimately the thing that breaks them apart when Lily’s father passes away. The gluttonous nature of Lily and her father is representative of the innate sexual desires of humans that creates animalistic tendencies, maybe another relation to Lily’s rabbit costume before her father’s death. Food in literature, is often representative of sexual intercourse but does so in a way that naturalizes the lesson being taught in terms that are not as culturally shocking as many references to sex can be. In a story that is already as shocking as Rabbits it makes sense that the author would use innuendos to mask the appalling nature of Lily and her father’s relationship, but do so with symbolism that is extremely representative of the underlying sexual themes.

Professor R Shaldijan Morrison, “Study Guide: Kanai Mieko’s “Rabbits” (Usagi 兎, 1972),” Youtube Video, 12:57, May 19, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4--IijG24po

This source follows Rabbits as a professor answers questions for his study guide. This source is well suited for an audience who has not read Rabbits but is interested in the main themes and takeaways from the story. The professor begins by stating that this story is one that is grotesque and shocking, often laying a deep impression on its readers. However, the rabbit killing ritual should not be taken literally; it is a possible source for the writer in the beginning of the story to process her trauma in order to get over her writer’s block. In order to move on with her life after trauma the narrator must come to terms with her dark past. This forms the story in a way that the rabbit girl, or second narrator, is an extension or past version of the writer in the beginning of the story; she talks about this grotesque tale to make reconciliation with her past in order to move on with her life. This study guide allows the watcher to look at Rabbits in a new and exciting way - making connections between the two narrators who, upon first reading, seem surprisingly disconnected, but seemingly have something interconnecting them due to the nature of their interaction.