psychedelicmirrors

In Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s The Key, readers find themselves facing narrative whiplash at the end when Ikuko reveals she has been manipulating her husband the entire time and exacerbating the conditions that led to his death. She takes over not only the current narrative after her husband can no longer contribute his diary entries, but retroactively becomes the primary narrator/main protagonist for previous entries as well. The metanarrative nature of the diary entries becomes apparent as she admits to wanting to give her story a proper “conclusion, rather than simply drop [it]” (Tanizaki 199). She acknowledges that she is not simply keeping a record of events through her diary, but crafting a narrative around her and her husband’s relationship and sexuality. Ikuko controls the story not only through the way she chooses to write it and reveal certain truths to readers (of which we can never be certain, since she has already admitted to being an unreliable narrator) but through her actions that actively guide the narrative towards a path that best suits her desires even as she pretends to be the manipulated one. By the end of the novel, Ikuko emerges as the heroine in what she ultimately crafts to be her own story, even though it is through grim and sadistic means that she succeeds in orchestrating a life where she can be with Kimura.

R.N.

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