Megumi Arai (born 1961) is a Japanese scholar specializing in British and comparative literature. She holds a doctorate from the University of Tokyo, where she studied comparative literature and culture, and is a professor in its Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology. Her research examines how British class consciousness appears in fiction, drama, language, education, and everyday life. She also studies film adaptations, focusing on how they reshape literary characters and their social contexts. Her exploration of class through literature and film, “Fukigen na Meari Popinzu” (an examination of the ill-tempered Mary Poppins), discusses works including “Emma,” “Jane Eyre,” and “The Remains of the Day.” It explains the social distinctions and irony conveyed through characters’ occupations, upbringing, and speech, and considers how these meanings change on screen. Her study of education and class, “Paburikku Sukuru” (British public schools and the making of gentlemen and ladies), traces the development of these private institutions through their history, school life, girls’ education, and school stories. It examines how ideals of the gentleman and lady became established and circulated beyond the schools themselves. In her account of spoken language and social hierarchy, “Eigo no kaikyu” (class distinctions in English), she investigates whether butlers speak like their upper-class employers. Discussing London’s Cockney, Liverpool’s Scouse, and BBC pronunciation, she shows how accents and vocabulary signal regional and social backgrounds and influence judgments and prejudices about their speakers.
