Fuji Musume (藤娘?) or Wisteria Maiden is an Otsu-e (Japanese folk painting in Ōtsu, Shiga) subject thought to have been inspired by popular dances. These paintings were often sold as good-luck charms for marriages. Fuji Musumè is also a famous classical Kabuki dance.[12]
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Giant Wistaria," the plant becomes both a sign of virility ("'It groweth well, this vine thou broughtest me in the ship, my husband.'") as well as a sign of destruction. A daughter has a child out of wedlock and her parents plan to take her back to the old country while giving the baby to a local town. The daughter hears this and ultimately, drowns the baby. She either hangs herself from the wistaria vines roots growing in the basement or they strangle her and kill her; the story doesn't clarify.