AustLit

Analyses Praed's novel and contrasts it with depictions of Japanese women in other western fiction which illustrate the 'Butterfly phenomenon' - the exoticisation of Japanese women and portrayals of the inevitable tragedy in relationships between them and western men. She finds Praed's novel remarkably free of romanticising and sees it as providing a fairly clear-eyed view of an actual country. 'Praed's perspective as a female, expatriate writer enabled her to approach Japan from a different perspective to that of male writers who had their own, masculine versions of Orientalism' (170).