三重子

Mi--E--Ko

Three-Layers/Levels-Child

Mieko's name suggests 3 separate Layers or Levels of depth, something which is echoed in the tripartite structure of the novel which revolves around the three Noh masks:

1. 霊女-Ryô-no-onna incarnation of the Rokujô Lady's spirit of revenge

2. 十寸髪 - the Masugami, or Madwoman mask, suggests the (sexual) frenzy state that Harume gets in, but she may also be be the victim

3. 深井 - Fukai, Deep Well or Deep Woman 深女, clearly linked to Mieko, a unique individual person who cannot necessarily know herself due to the depths and complexity of her personality.

This mask could connote a Japanese female version of a shaman who is not merely a sick person, but a sick person who has managed to cure herself, to have exorcised her trauma and risen above all the worldly and human trials and tribulations she has endured. It could be that through all her machinations and manipulations, Mieko wound up creating her own healing ritual that incorporated her experiences with spirit possession and mizuko--a Japanese Buddhist ceremony that focuses on a deceased fetus or stillborn/aborted child which, in this case, allows her to be symbolically reunited with her lost child (from her original pregnancy by husband Masatsugu.

Don't forget that the Yakushiji 薬師寺 family name evokes the great temple of the Healing Buddha in Nara so it is connected both with all of the Noh masks, of course, but also, with healing, as well. But the costs have been high: Mieko's child who was lost through Aguri's actions, then the loss of her twins, Akio and Harume, the latter being a loss that could have been averted. To achieve a shamanistic evocation of the dead child's spirit, Mieko employs her innocent daughter to perform the role of miko, a Shinto priestess and medium. As the one who supplies Mieko with a substitute for the lost child, Harume is embued with the aura of a Jizô figure. Through the sacrifice of her life, violence is turned into compassion, although less for her than for the child. Through the sacrifice of her life, violence is turned into compassion, although less for her than for the child.