Through the Eyes of Ladies-in-Waiting: Female Spectatorship and the Power of Knowledge in the Genji Scrolls

Scholars have long noted the essential role of nyōbō, or ladies-in-waiting, in The Tale of Genji. Although rarely taking center stage, these seemingly peripheral characters have been understood to constitute networks through which information could flow, often “offstage, ” thus setting in motion much of the tale's drama and propelling the narrative forward. This article examines the prominence of ladies-in-waiting in the tale's earliest extant adaptation, the mid-twelfth-century Genji Scrolls. My study, employing both art historical and literary textual analyses, demonstrates that the nyōbō's function informs their treatment and placement in the scrolls' images as well as several aspects of the work's visual structure. It also adds to scholarship on voyeurism in Genji by noting the ways in which information gathering is shown to be multisensory rather than limited to the use of vision and to be the purview of female as well as male characters. Finally, paralleling the role of nyōbō as points of connection in the tale's narrative structure, I show how images of the ladies-in-waiting in the Genji Scrolls tie together disparate elements of the tale and also reveal hidden meanings to astute readers and viewers.