Angels and Elephants: Historical Allegories in Ogawa Yōko’s 2006 Mīna no kōshin

Abstract

In Ogawa Yōko’s Mīna no kōshin (Mena’s procession, 2006), the adult narrator Tomoko regularly gazes at a token from her past: a photo taken in 1973 when Tomoko, aged 12, spent a year with her wealthy aunt, uncle, and cousin in a spacious mansion outside Ashiya.1 Glancing down at the photo, Tomoko moves along an odd cast of characters: Mena, her cousin, whose chestnut-colored eyes and brown-black hair testify to her partGerman heritage; Mena’s mother, father, and her brother Ryūichi; and Rosa, her German Jewish grandmother. Next to Rosa stand the faithful housekeeper, Yoneda, and Kobayashi, the groundskeeper, who guards Pochiko, the family pet, a pigmy hippo who once lived in the wealthy family’s small zoo. Gazing at the photo, Tomoko utters the reassuring words to herself, “Every time I look at the photo, I whisper, ‘Everyone is here, it’s OK, no one is missing’” (Mīna no kōshin, 197).2 Tomoko’s use of the present tense serves as a hedge against reality: in her mind at least, Ashiya remains unchanged over time. At the beginning of the novel, Tomoko also seems unable to shake off the illusion of stasis: “In