First Advisor
Jon Holt
Date of Award
Winter 3-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in World Languages & Literatures: Japanese and University Honors
Department
World Languages and Literatures
Language
English
Subjects
Modern Japanese Literature, Detective Fiction, Science Fiction, Interwar, Gender, Mystery
Abstract
This thesis argues that Unno Jūza's 1937 short story “Mrs. Hirumi’s Refrigeration Bag” uses the sensational tropes of deviant detective fiction to both stage and interrogate interwar Japanese anxieties around gender, science, and modernity. Focusing on the figure of Mrs. Hirumi—a scientifically empowered and sexually assertive female plastic surgeon who dismembers and cryogenically preserves her husband—the author reads her as a radical iteration of the Japanese Modern Girl character. By drawing on scholarship on deviant detective fiction, imperial modernity, and Kazue Harada’s concept of (re)productivity, this thesis demonstrates how the short story both reproduces misogynistic criminological discourse and unsettles heteronormative reproductive futurism. Through close analysis of its unreliable narration, biopolitical imagery, and the text’s ambivalent treatment of Mrs. Hirumi, the author contends that Unno’s work complicates the dismissal of deviant detective fiction as mere pulp or imperialist propaganda. Finally, this thesis advocates a feminist, resistant reading practice and presents an abridged translation of “Mrs. Hirumi’s Refrigeration Bag” to facilitate further study of the Modern Girl archetype and early Japanese science fiction.
Recommended Citation
Mortimer, Eliza, "Madwoman Makings: The Modern Girl as an Object of Fear and Fascination in Unno Jūza’s “Mrs. Hirumi’s Refrigeration Bag”" (2026). University Honors Theses. Paper 1764.