Breasts and Eggs

In Breasts and Eggs, Kawakami turns the familiar foreign by having several characters struggle to identify with their own bodies. She returns to the motif of dissociation and alienation from the body as she explores the effects of oppressive social standards on women. Natsu and other female characters feel alienated from their own bodies partially because of the general complexities of existence in a human body, and partially because of the way women’s bodies are perceived by society.

Kawakami often represents this alienation through language that frames the body as strange, uncomfortable, and ugly. Natsu describes Makiko’s thin body, worn from decades of hard work, in such language, comparing her arms to “sticks” and drawing attention to her sunken eyes. Later, in the bathhouse, Makiko and Natsu compare their nipples to black cherries, Oreo cookies, and rubber tires. These cumbersome metaphors stand out from the novel’s thoughtful prose, deliberately calling attention to the way Natsu and Makiko have been socialized to judge their own bodies harshly against an unattainable beauty standard, and to take drastic measures to conform to that standard. Though Natsu is able to resist this pressure, Makiko, whose work at a hostess bar requires her to appear youthful and beautiful, considers breast augmentation surgery she can’t afford.