Iruikon'intan: stories about the partnership of animals and humans in the past and the present time

Japanese term iruikonintan refers to stories about marriage between a human and a being other than human, such as supernatural beings, animals, ghosts, monsters etc. Although there are a lot of such examples in classical Japanese literature, one can hardly overlook frequent appearance of their motives in modern and contemporary literature as well. This thesis covers that field of iruikonintan, which is related to marriages between human and animals. On a number of examples starting from ancient myths to Buddhist tales, folktales and fairy tales it gives some hints, how to comprehend the phenomenon of iruikonintan. While using the Jungian psychoanalytic approach and the methodology of archetypal criticism, the thesis focuses on the interpretation of various structures of iruikonintan as an allegorical representation of the unconscious contents in human mind. Considering the socio-political background in Japan in every epoch of its history of thought, iruikonintan has absorbed these various influences (such as Buddhism, Confucianism, etc.) during the times. These influences are rooted deeply in iruikonintan themselves as well as in collective unconsciousness. Short novels by contemporary Japanese woman writers Kawakami Hiromi and Tawada Yoko contain the well known motives from classical iruikonintan. However,..