Breasts and Eggs

The coming of Christmas highlights the extent of Natsu’s isolation; she has no one to celebrate with and hasn’t for many years. Though Natsu typically seems content living alone, she catches herself wondering if her life will always be the same. She describes time passing in “blocks” of identical days, symbolizing how disaffected and disconnected she feels in the present. Meanwhile, her memories and visions continue to conjure strong emotions. Her confrontation with the man she takes to be her father is surreal—it is unclear, though unlikely, that the man really is her father. Rather, their encounter is a manifestation of Natsu’s grief and guilt over her mother’s death.

Kawakami elaborates on the theme of Single-Mother Households and the Dangers of Domesticity as Natsu continues to explore her options for motherhood. As a single woman nearing her 40s, it is virtually impossible for Natsu to qualify for artificial insemination within Japan. She is also ineligible to adopt due to her unmarried status. Discrimination against single women is baked into Japanese fertility laws, with donation services catering almost exclusively to married, heterosexual couples. Ironically, women are pushed toward becoming mothers but discouraged from motherhood if they do not fit the conventional mold. Like many single women in Japan, Natsu must either consider legally gray (and potentially unsafe) options, such as direct donation, or look outside Japan for assistance.

In these chapters, Natsu continually encounters the rhetoric that children need a father and a mother, which is rooted in the same traditionalism that assigns men disproportionate power. Yet Natsu’s interaction with Rie highlights that a two-parent household is not necessarily a stable one. Even in non-abusive two-parent homes, the bulk of childrearing falls on the mother. Patriarchal power structures influence relationships in the home; younger women are expected to dote on their husbands, and older women are expected to coddle their sons, regardless of how these men behave.

Natsu’s married friend Rie describes the abject failure of all the male figures in her life. Her father beat her mother brutally and “never saw [Rie] as a real person” (248). Her own husband dismissed her postpartum depression yet takes it for granted that Rie will care for him during his depression. Rather than seeing the nuclear family unit as vital for a child’s happiness, Rie believes it can be their greatest source of suffering. Still, she is unwilling to get a divorce, citing a lack of opportunities for “a good-for-nothing single mother, going on forty” (252). The pressure to conform to a traditional role keeps her trapped in a miserable marriage.

Rika Yusa is a foil to Rie, an example of a woman living a happy and unconventional life. Rika is a single mother and a successful author. A vocal feminist, she is known for her outspoken criticism of archaic gender norms and willingness to publicly stand up to misogyny. She enjoys raising her daughter on her own. Rika’s family adds to the growing list of single-mother households in Natsu’s life and provides another perspective on Defining Womanhood: Gender Roles in Contemporary Japan.

The question of what defines a real family plays into the theme of Reproductive Rights Versus Anti-Natalism. Married couples are seen as having a right to children, while single women and same-sex couples who choose to have children are vilified and discriminated against. Yet the underlying act is the same—in both circumstances, the child is brought into the world without their consent, to fulfill the wants of the parent or parents. Kawakami criticizes the idea that single motherhood is inherently more selfish than having a child in a partnership.

When Natsu remembers her childhood, the recollections are happy ones despite her family’s poverty and her father’s absence. Natsu was a well-loved child who enjoyed close bonds with the women in her family. Before her mother and Komi died, there was no sense of anything missing in her life. Kawakami’s positive framing of a single-mother household contrasts the idea that all households must include a father and a mother.

Jun Aizawa is the first significant male character introduced to the narrative. Like Natsu, Aizawa is unmarried in his 30s. He has lost his father in a sense, just as Natsu has lost her mother, allowing him to relate to Natsu in a way that the other male figures in her life cannot. Natsu’s interactions with Aizawa encourage her to consider the full impact of having a baby, not just on her own life but on the life of the unborn child. She must acknowledge that her hypothetical child might feel as out of place as Aizawa does.