Naomi (novel) - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

The release of Naomi aroused young women of the time to engage in a cultural revolution. There was a boom of moga; working class women who work and choose men for themselves, not for the sake of their families. Traditionally, young girls who wish to work lived in factory dormitories and send their wages home to their family. Mogas worked to maintain their fashionable lifestyle, living in the city and being independent. They were a hot topic in 1920s Japan. The media would discuss their characteristics, characterizing them in various ways; one media group suggested modern girls were independent, non-traditional girls; another suggested modern girls spoke more like men. All groups agreed modern girls were very Westernized women who refused to recognize gender and class boundaries. The modern girls movement in Japan was strikingly similar to the flapper movement in the United States in the same period.

The other class explicitly shown in Naomi is the middle management, white collar class males. In the story, Jōji is known to be a skilled educated worker from a well off landlord family. He is the embodiment of a new class of Japanese salarymen. After the Meiji Restoration, the educated males moved into the cities to attend universities and become white collar business workers as opposed to the farmers, artisans, and merchants of the past. Jōji is unusual because he belongs to an upper level management. In the novel, he seldom works hard, only going into the office for a few hours each day. In contrast, the average salaryman works long working hours with little prestige, and with little hope of climbing the corporate hierarchy.