I found this article online, it was a really long article, but I copied and pasted what I thought was the most relavent info to this class. I'll provide the link if you want to read the whole thing.
"One of the most powerful motifs provoking Tomo's voice is contact with the disruptive desire of the written text. The secondary text, a text within the text, is one of Enchi's favourite narrative strategies. In The Waiting Years, there are several significant secondary texts, each designed by the author to focus reader attention on the situation of the protagonist, particularly with respect to her role as a mother. The embedded texts to be discussed here are a letter of exhortation from Tomo's mother, (40) the kabuki theatre drama entitled The Yotsuya Ghost Tale, (41) and the tragic Buddhist fable of Queen Vaidehi. (42) This last is the fable that informs the Ajase complex of Japanese psychoanalysis, a set of symptoms that, according to Peter Dale, was devised specifically to contest the significance of Freud's Oedipal complex in the context of Japanese society. (43) Where the Oedipal complex focuses on the father-child relationship, the Ajase complex foregrounds the relationship between the mother and the child as the cause of psychological disorder. Both fictional secondary narratives are tragic works resulting in acute suffering or death. Both are also intimately concerned with the mother and, moreover, the mother who carries an expiatory burden for her husband's transgressions. The content of Tomo's mother's letter is more mundane. Nevertheless, its tactical association with the fictive texts heightens its impact and accentuates the harsh reality of the existence of both the writer and her daughter. Beginning with this letter, it will be helpful to examine Tomo's response to the three secondary texts listed above and how these act as a catalyst for her voice. (44)"
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6314402/The-Waiting-Years-Enchi-Fumiko.html
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So the Ajase complex would be a child bonding with their father? I think that's what the author is trying to say here. This would make complete sense in the Waiting Years with the many daughter-father relationships. The interesting thing in the Waiting Years for me was that Yukitomo's actual daughter had very few relations with him. In this way Enchi drifted away from the literal interpretation of the Ajase complex and focused more on the figurative. Though with Yukitomo sleeping with his daughter-in-law she gets dangerously close to inferring incest. The fact that this complex exists helps greatly with understanding the premise that Enchi might have had when writing this novel.
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