Kaoru Genji
Unlike acts one and two where the women of the story gravitated to the charismatic and assertive Hikaru Genji, Kaoru is portrayed with hesitancy and compunction towards his love interests.
The learning of this secret drives his obsessiveness with the past, seeking to comprehend it and atone for the sins of his parents, rather than devote himself to the promiscuity and procreation expected of him by society: "longing to know the facts of his birth, Kaoru prayed that he might one day have a clear explanation".
[2] In his grieving state, Kaoru copes unhealthily by means of substitution; finding another who can fill the hole that was left in his heart by Oigimi’s death.
[2] Kaoru’s infatuation with Naka no kimi is short-lived, however, as she tells him about Ukifune, the illegitimate daughter of Hachinomiya and her younger, half-sister, who likewise bears a striking resemblance to the late Oigimi.
His complicated birth and flawed characteristics contrasted the heroics of the previous protagonist, Hikaru Genji, and Murasaki’s establishment of the character as a pathetic caught between renunciation and desire, kindness and cruel circumstance[2] marked him as an anti-hero.
Through Oigimi’s death, Kaoru reveals his willingness to compensate for a lost love through the substitute figure or memonto[13] of Ukifune, her sister who has an identical physical presence,[14] without consideration for her feelings.
He does not know how damaging this becomes to Ukifune, who bears the brunt of his affections for Oigimi to cope with his mourning, failing to recognise his own shortcomings and inability to self-reflect.
In Kaoru’s perspective, Ukifune is described three times as a ‘katashiro’ for Oigimi, which can be translated to "doll" or "substitute",[15] and regards her in a condescending manner: "A loveable sort of companion she might have been, someone not to be taken seriously or offered too excellent a place".
[4] Niou is the only character besides Genji's friend and rival, To no Chujo to be called 'adabito' (ada-person), someone who is thoroughly undependable in love that his unreliability is his chief feature.
Kaoru's immense concern for his reputation and public image[17] causes him to conduct his love affairs in a socially acceptable manner.
[4][5] Kaoru converts his secret affairs into less risky, more stable ones, he does not marry any of the women he is involved with, offering them positions as attendants in his mother's house, where they would be likely to see him frequently.
Due to this, translators like A. Waley and Tyler would include a 'translator's note' or character list at the start of every chapter to ensure the readers could differentiate between people.
A man's options in the Heian period included marriage to several wives, a number of secret affairs, and both occasional and live-in lovers.
A woman of influential family and very high rank like Oigimi, who is a princess, for example, would properly be the object of a formal marriage, in this case, to Kaoru.
In the first part of the Second Month, Niou, Kaoru, and other court officials gather at the Palace to compose poems in Chinese to be read to the emperor in the following morning.
[5] Among scholars, Kaoru is believed to have homoerotic inclinations due to a hysterical desire to avoid the sins of both his biological and imagined fathers, particularly, the passionate affairs of his parents being the cause of his confused sense of identity.
[5] Despite his yearning for a father figure, which he finds in Oigimi, he engages in sexual relationship with her, thus scholars believing this to be hints of Kaoru's homoeroticism.
In the study of Ukifune, Amanda Stinchecum wrote: "the uniformity of diction reveals disjunctions in thought, misunderstandings... even in dialogue, a lack of receptiveness..." this may have been due to Kaoru's hesitancy and unsure approach to his romantic relationships.
