The Fashion Statements of Dazai Osamu: Sartorial and Literary Expressions of Gender in Wartime Japan.

As the intersection between individual expression and social signification, fashion served as a literary motif through which Dazai Osamu advanced his explorations of the links and disconnects between one's outward appearance and internal thoughts, and questioned the slippery notion of a self represented to others through not just clothing but also actions, postures, and words. [The author] argues that in his writings on fashion, Dazai questioned the premises of social order as envisioned by the nationalistic regime, especially in regards to its subjects as clothed and gendered along a definite divide... In flouting stylistic conventions, Dazai's characters thus undermine the categories of gender that tightening sartorial norms aimed to reinforce. In the following, [the author] attempts to show that whether in expressing a masculine perspective or performing a feminine one, Dazai diffused each of his fictional gendered voices by revealing it as contextualized by shifting social discourses. [Author]