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Chapter VI
The Uncontested Master’s Rashomon and Other Stories
Akutagawa Ryunosuke opened a hole in our consciousness. We
circled the edge of this abyss, peering into its depths.
- Yokomitsu Riichi
The name Akutagawa is a big one in Japanese literature, especially to
Kurosawa fans. Akutagawa’s story “Rashomon” was used as the setting for the
famed 1950 film, even though it is his story “In a Grove” that provides the direct
template for the film. Dying by suicide at the age of thirty-five in 1927,
Akutagawa wrote well over one hundred short stories many of which are praised
for their lyricism.
The term short story usually refers to the modern short story, which
evolved out of earlier types of fiction in prose and verse. The earliest ancestors of
short stories are ancient tales, simple stories that date back to Egyptian writings
that are 6,000 years old. Another early form was the fable, such as those of the
6th-century-BC Greek slave Aesop, each with a lesson to be expressed. There
were also popular Greek and Asian stories of magical transformations, many with
moralistic, satirical, and pure entertainment aims, which were gathered and retold
by the Roman several centuries ago.
Tales in great variety flourished in Western Europe during the middle
Ages. Romance tales, in prose or verse, were common in France. Many of the best
stories of the middle Ages were preserved and refined in two 14th-century works,
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The Decameron by Italian prose writer Giovanni Boccaccio and The Canterbury
Tales by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. They retold fables, epics about beasts,
example of religious tales, romances, fabliaux - ribald tale and legends.
When the short story emerged as a genre in the 19th century, it was seen
as something totally new and modern. Popular and literary magazines
increasingly began to publish short stories that often reflected the dominant
literary trends of the day. Till then the primary focus of most stories had been on
the plot.
Short stories are most often a form of fiction writing, with the most widely
published form of short stories being genre fiction such as science fiction, horror
fiction, detective fiction, and so on. The short story has also come to embrace
forms of non-fiction such as travel writing, prose poetry and postmodern variants
of fiction and non-fiction such as ficto-criticism or new journalism.
Short stories are fictional works depicting one character’s inner conflict or
conflict with others, usually having one thematic focus. They generally produce a
single, focused emotional and intellectual response in the reader. Novels, by
contrast, usually depict conflicts among many characters developed through a
variety of episodes, stimulating a complexity of responses in the reader. The short
story form ranges from very short stories which run in length from one to four
pages, to novellas that can easily be 100 pages long and exhibit characteristics of
both the short story and the novel. Literary short fiction employs complex
techniques to depict the often-irresolvable dilemmas of the human predicament.
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The basic elements of the short story include setting -time and place,
conflict, character, and theme. The reader follows the main character or
protagonist in a conflict with another character or antagonist or in an internal
conflict with some antagonistic psychological or spiritual force. Characters range
from familiar stereotypes, such as the aggressive businessman and the lonely
housewife, to archetypal characters, such as the rebel, the scapegoat, the alter ego,
and those engaged in some sort of search.
The subject of a short story is often mistaken for its theme. Common
subjects for modern short fiction include race, ethnic status, gender, class, and
social issues such as poverty, drugs, violence, and divorce. These subjects allow
the writer to comment upon the larger theme that is the heart of the fictional work.
Some of the major themes of 20th-century short stories, as well as longer forms of
fiction, are human isolation, alienation, and personal trauma, such as anxiety; love
and hate; male-female relationships; family and the conflict of generations;
initiation from innocence to experience; friendship and brotherhood; illusion and
reality; self-delusion and self-discovery; the individual in conflict with society’s
institutions; mortality; spiritual struggles; and even the relationship between life
and art.
The art of the short story employs the techniques of point of view, style,
plot and structure, and a wide range of devices that stimulate emotional,
imaginative, and intellectual responses in the reader. The writer’s choice and
control of these techniques determines the reader’s overall experience.
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Among the ways of looking at the subjects, themes, and art of the short
story is to review the astonishing range and varieties of types of stories. These
include tales, fantasies, humor and satire, character studies, confession,
biography, history, education, religion, and local color types.
Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story
will focus on only one incident, have a single plot, a single setting, a limited
number of characters, and cover a short period of time.
A classic definition of a short story is that one must be able to be read it in
one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe's essay The Philosophy
of Composition of 1846. Other definitions place the maximum word length at
7,500 words. In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a
work of fiction no longer than 20,000 words and no shorter than 1,000.
Stories shorter than 1,000 words fall into the flash fiction genre. Fiction
surpassing the maximum word length parameters of the short story falls into the
areas of novelettes, novellas, or novels.
“Rashomon and Other Stories” contains six brief stories. “In a Grove”
presents a crime from five perspectives. “Rashomon” is an eerie tale of a
desperate old woman surviving by pilfering the hair of corpses. “Yam Gruel” has
a pathetic central character whose single ambition is to eat his fill of yam gruel.
“The Martyr” tells a tale of virtue and renunciation. “Kesa and Morita” deals with
questions of perception, infatuation and love. “The Dragon” questions the
reliability of memory. The themes covered in all the six stories are perceptions of
reality and illusion, intent, meaning and a deep philosophical insight.
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The story “In a Grove” tells the story of a crime, all from different points
of view. Its structure is by far the most memorable of the stories and each side has
a distinct voice, separate from the others. The story “Rashomon” deals with a
samurai servant who must choose between living an honorable life that would
ultimately lead him to starvation, or to save himself by becoming a thief. The
story end with a cliché.: Beyond this was only darkness…unknowing and
unknown.
“Yam Gruel” has a bit of humor in it, as it deals with a low rank samurai
named Goi. In the description the narrator notes, Goi was a very plain-looking
man. His hollow cheeks made his chin seem unusually long. His lips…if we
mentioned his every striking feature, there would be no end. He was extremely
homely and sloppy in appearance. Throughout the tale he yearns for a delicacy
called Yam gruel. It’s an odd tale, with some insight; a man sometimes devotes
his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at
this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.
“The Martyr” is set in the 16th century and involves an orphan raised by
Jesuits and there is a classic twist in this tale when questions pertaining to
child paternity arise. “Kesa and Morito” is told via two different
monologues. A man who feels neither love nor hate must kill someone he
does not hate at the request of a lover he does not love. This is the most
soap-operatic of the tales, though the structure is interesting enough and
clichés are undermined in such a way that offers just the right amount of
freshness. Lastly, “The Dragon” involves a priest who plans a trick against
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the priests of Nara because they are habitually making fun of his nose. He
informs them that a dragon shall ascend to heaven. The story appears silly
but also has satiric underlining lessons involving gullibility and belief.
Over the last decade of Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s brief literary life from
1892 to 1927, his fiction exhibited signs of the writer's growing distrust
toward the value of the literary form. The culmination of this
disillusionment is reflected in both the disintegration of his writing form
into a collection of fragmentary episodes in “A Fool's Life”, written in
1927 and in the writer's own suicide that same year. Earlier works in
Akutagawa's career point to the writer's growing anxiety about the literary
form, particularly the possibility of objective narration.
One of his most well known stories, “In a Grove” written in 1922, is based
on a 12th century Japanese tale in which a couple is attacked by a bandit on the
side of the road. Akutagawa incorporated the main event of the story but adapted
the plotline to engage in the problem of objective narration. The story is separated
into several contradictory accounts of the same event-the rape of a woman and the
murder of her husband. This epistemological inquiry has been adapted by
filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon (1950). Apparently, the film, like its
literary predecessor, appears to assert the impossibility of objective truth.
Yet, Rashomon ultimately reveals a desire for objectivity in its presentation of the
narration. This move towards objectivity demonstrates the filmmaker's attempt to
transcend Akutagawa's exhausted modern project and search for a rebirth of
artistic representation.
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Detachment was a key strategy to Akutagawa. As a narrator, he liked to be
unseen, impersonal; he cultivated the oblique glance. When he did enter his
stories, it was usually in the slight role of the observer or the suave self-effacing
compiler. Old tales and legends, historical settings of the remote Heian Period or
the feudal ages which followed -these he used not to turn his elaborate erudition
to account, but to enrich and extend the implications of his themes, and to
maintain aesthetic distance. It suited his ironic taste to play the illusionist who
leaves his audience staring blankly into a mirror.
The stories have a dazzling and perhaps deceptive sheen. Superficial
critics called Akutagawa precious, or decadent, or dismissed him as a fatiguingly
clever dilettante. Unprepared for the strength of his later satires, they supposed
him to care only for the superb texture of his prose. Translation protects us from
the seductions of this style, yet encourages a similar error, since the nuances of
Akutagawa's prose are what convey the essence of his thought. Like Natsume
Soseki and Hori gai, whom he admired, Akutagawa used his language delicately,
precisely, and with a richness enhanced by knowledge of several literatures. It is
significant that his first published writings were translations of Yeats and Anatole
France.
He remarked once that words must yield more than the bare dictionary
meanings; he had a poet's feeling for their shapes and flavors, as well as their
ambiguities, and he combined them with such freshness and economy that his
phrasing never lacks distinction. Like Picasso, Akutagawa often varied his style,
but always, whatever the particular blend of vernacular and mandarin, he
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controlled it with scrupulous precision. A master of tone, he gave his stories a
cool classic surface, colored but never marred by the wit and warmth underlying
that perfect glaze. The composure of his style is undisturbed even by vivid accents
of the sordid or the bizarre.
After his death Akutagawa was largely neglected in Japan by critics who
considered his style affected and his poetic approach to fiction overly refined—as
evidenced, for example, in his subtle characterization. However, more recent
commentators have found that Akutagawa's stories are skillfully written and
demonstrate scope unrestricted to his own time and culture, and for that reason
widened the dimensions of their genre and helped make short stories a more
important part of Japanese literature.
Through his early work as a translator and his later concern with important
critical issues, he helped introduce and foster the tradition of the European novel
in his own country, where, according to some critics, the novel form might
otherwise have degenerated.
Far from being dismayed by the differences between East and West,
Akutagawa used them as sources for both the content and spirit of his work; the
result was a significant achievement in the development of modern Japanese
literature.
Howard Hibbett writes about Akutagawa,
What he did was to question the values of his society, dramatize
the complexities of human psychology, and study, with a Zen taste
for paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality. He
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developed a variety of techniques—from realism to fantasy,
symbolism to surrealism—and used all of them in the search for
poetic truth.
The short story “In a Grove” first appeared in the January 1922 edition of
the Japanese literature monthly Shincho. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the
basis for his award-winning movie Rashomon. The story is often praised as being
among the greatest in Japanese literature.
“In a Grove” is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying
accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has
been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies
and perplexes what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a
complex and contradictory vision of the event that questions humanity's ability or
willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth.
Akutagawa’s “In a Grove” tells the story of a man and his wife who are
joined by a robber on a journey. In this story, after the wife is raped, the man
dies, the robber is captured, and the wife, having tried unsuccessfully to commit
suicide, takes refuge in a Buddhist temple. The story is made up of the narratives
of seven different characters, beginning with four brief narratives by people
involved in discovering the crime and ending with longer narratives by the three
main characters (the dead man speaking through a medium). Each of the three
main characters claims to have killed the husband; their stories are completely
conflicting. The reader is left not knowing where truth may lie.
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Akutagawa's influences for this story may have come from several
different sources:
•
A story from the classic Japanese collection Konjaku Monogatarishu: In
the 23rd story of the 29th volume—The Tale Of The Bound Man Who
Was Accompanying His Wife to Tanba—a man is tied to a tree in a
bamboo grove and forced to watch helplessly as his wife gets raped by a
young thief, who has stolen all of their belongings.
•
The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce: a short story about the murder of a
woman, as told by her husband and herself through a medium, and
introduced by their son.
•
The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning, a narrative poem based on
the true story about a murder told in 12 different ways.
The story opens with the account of a woodcutter who has found a man's
body in the woods. The woodcutter reports that man died of a single sword slash
to the chest, and that the trampled leaves around the body showed there had been
a violent struggle, but otherwise lacked any significant evidence as to what
actually happened. There were no weapons nearby, and no horses—only a single
piece of rope, a comb and a lot of blood.
Yes, Sir. Certainly, it was I who found the body. This morning, as
usual, I went to cut my daily quota of cedars, when I found the
body in a grove in a hollow in the mountains. The exact location?
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About 150 meters off the Yamashina stage road. It’s an out of the
way grove of bamboo and cedars.
…...Little did I expect that he would meet such a fate. Truly human
life is an evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning. My
words are inadequate to express my sympathy for him. (19 -20)
The next account is delivered by a traveling Buddhist priest. He says that
he met the man, who was accompanied by a woman on horseback, on the road,
around noon the day before the murder. The man was carrying a sword, a bow
and a black quiver. All of these, along with the woman's horse, a tall, short-maned
palomino, were missing when the woodcutter discovered the body.
The man that I arrested? He is a notorious brigand called
Tajomaru. When I arrested him, he had fallen off his horse. He was
groaning on the bridge at Awataguchi. The time? It was in the
early hours of last night. For the record, I might say that the other
day I tried to arrest him, but unfortunately he escaped. He was
wearing a dark blue silk kimono and a large plain sword. And, as
you see, he got a bow and arrows somewhere. You say that this
bow and these arrows look like the ones owned by the dead man?
Then Tajomaru must be the murderer. (21)
The next person to testify is a homen a released prisoner working under
contract to the police. He has captured an infamous criminal named Tajomaru.
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Tajomaru was injured when thrown from a tall, short-maned palomino horse, and
he is carrying a bow and a black quiver, which do not belong to his usual arsenal.
This proves, he says, that Tajomaru was the perpetrator. Tajomaru was not
carrying the dead man's sword, however.
Yes, sir, that corpse is the man who married my daughter. He does
not come from Kyoto. He was a samurai in the town of Kokufu in
the province of Wakasa. His name was Kanazawa no Takehiko,
and his age was twenty-six. He was of a gentle disposition, so I am
sure he did nothing to provoke the anger of others. (22)
The next testimony is from an old woman, who identifies herself as the
mother of the missing girl. Her daughter is a beautiful, strong-willed 19-year-old
named Masago, married to Kanazawa no Takehiro—a 26-year-old samurai from
Wakasa. Her daughter, she says, has never been with a man other than Takehiro.
She begs the police to find her daughter.
I killed him, but not her. Where’s she gone? I can’t tell. Oh, wait a
minute. No torture can make me confess what I don’t know. Now
things have come to such a head, I won’t keep anything from you.
(23)
Next, Tajomaru confesses. He says that he met them on the road in the
forest, and upon first seeing Masago, decided that he was going to rape her.
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Telling you in this way, no doubt I seem a crueler man than you.
But that’s because you didn’t see her face. Especially her burning
eyes at that moment. As I saw her eye to eye, I wanted to make her
my wife even if I were to be struck by lightning. I wanted to make
her my wife….. this single desire filled my mind. This was not
only lust, as you might think. At that time if I’d had no other desire
than lust, I’d surely not have minded knocking her down and
running away. Then I wouldn’t have stained my sword with his
blood. But the moment I gazed at her face in the dark grove, I
decided not to there without killing him. (26)
In order to rape Masago unhindered, he separated the couple, luring
Takehiro into the woods with the promise of buried treasure. He then stuffed his
mouth full of leaves, tied him to a tree and fetched Masago. When Masago saw
her husband tied to the tree, she pulled a dagger from her bosom and tried to stab
Tajōmaru, but he knocked the knife out of her hand, and he had his way with her.
Originally, he had no intention of killing the man, he claims, but after the rape,
she begged him to either kill her husband or kill himself—she could not live if
two men knew her shame. She would leave with the last man standing. Tajōmaru
did not wish to kill Takehiro in a cowardly manner, so he untied him and they had
a swordfight. During the duel, Masago fled. Tajōmaru dispatched the man and
took the man's sword, bow, and quiver, as well as the woman's horse. He says that
he sold the sword before he was captured by the bounty hunter.
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The second-to-last account is that of Masago:
The man in the blue silk kimono, after forcing me to yield to him,
laughed mockingly as he looked at my bound husband. How
horrified my husband must have been! But no matter how hard he
struggled in agony, the rope cut into him all the more tightly. In
spite of myself I ran stumblingly towards his side. Or rather I tried
to run towards him, but the man instantly knocked me down. Just
at that moment I saw an indescribable light in my husband’s eyes.
Something beyond expression… his eyes make me shudder even
now. That instantaneous look of my husband, who couldn’t speak a
word, told me all his heart. The flash in his eyes was neither anger
nor sorrow…. Only a cold light, a look of loathing. More struck by
the look in his eyes than by the blow of the thief, I called out in
spite of myself and fell unconscious. (27-28)
According to her, after the rape, Tajōmaru fled, and her husband, still tied
to the tree, looked at her with great disdain. She was ashamed that she had been
raped, and no longer wished to live, but she wanted him to die with her. He
agreed, or so she believed—he couldn't actually say anything because his mouth
was still stuffed full of leaves—and she plunged her dagger into his chest. She
then cut the rope that bound Takehiro, and ran into the forest, whereupon she
attempted to commit suicide numerous times, she said, but her spirit was too
strong to die. Of all of the accounts of the crime, the woman's is arguably the least
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believable, and in great discordance with the other two. At the end of her
confession, she weeps.
The final account comes from Takehiro's ghost, as delivered through a
spirit medium:
I raised my exhausted body from the root of the cedar. In front of
me there was shining the small sword which my wife had dropped.
I took it up and stabbed it into my breast. A bloody lump rose to
my mouth, but I didn’t feel any pain. When my breast grew cold,
everything was as silent as the dead in their graves. What profound
silence! Not a single bird-note was head in the sky over this grave
in the hollow of the mountains. Only a lonely light lingered on the
cedars and mountain. By and by the light gradually grew fainter,
till the cedars and bamboo were lost to view. Lying there, I was
enveloped in deep silence.
Then someone crept up to me. I tried to see who it was. But
darkness had already been gathering around me. Someone…. That
someone drew the small sword softly out of my breast in its
invisible hand. At the same time once more blood flowed into my
mouth. And once and for all I sank down into the darkness of
space. (32-33)
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The ghost says that after the rape, Tajomaru persuaded Masago to leave
her husband and become his own wife, which she agreed to do under one
condition: He would have to kill Takehiro. Tajomaru became enraged at the
suggestion, kicked her to the ground, and asked Takehiro if he should kill the
dishonorable woman. Hearing this, Masago fled into the forest. Tajōmaru then cut
Takehiro's bonds and ran away. Takehiro grabbed Masago's fallen dagger and
plunged it into his chest. Shortly before he died, he sensed someone creep up to
him and steal the dagger from his chest. Throughout, it is obvious that he is
furious at his wife.
In the story the facts which remain unquestionable are Tajomaru led the
couple into the forest as he said. Takehiro is dead. Tajomaru raped Masago.
Tajomaru stole Takehiro's bow and quiver, as well as the woman's horse. In each
of the accounts, Masago wishes Takehiro dead, although the details vary. Masago
and Tajomaru did not leave together.
The differences between the characters' stories range from the trivial to the
fundamental. There are various discrepancies between the characters' testimonies,
namely: The comb mentioned by the woodcutter is not mentioned by any of the
other characters. The "violent struggle" that trampled the leaves, mentioned by the
woodcutter, seems to occur only in Tajomaru's version of the story—the
swordfight. The woodcutter also claims that the man was killed by a single sword
slash across the chest, but in both Masago's and Takehiro's versions of the story,
he was killed by a dagger thrust to the chest.
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The woodcutter claims that Takehiro was wearing a Kyoto-style hat called
a sabi-eboshi; however Masago's mother says that he was not from Kyoto. We
know that the author wanted to draw significance to this fact, because he
specifically had the police investigator ask her if Takehiro was from Kyoto. The
traveling priest says that he clearly remembers that there were more than 20
arrows in the man's quiver. The fugitive hunter says that there were only 17.
Tajomaru does not mention how Masago's dagger disappeared from the crime
scene.
In Tajomaru's and Takehiro's accounts, Masago and Tajomaru have a long
conversation after the rape, after which, she is willing to leave with Tajōmaru, so
long as her husband is dead. Masago's account omits this completely. Masago
does not mention how Takehiro's sword disappeared from the crime scene. It
seems unlikely that Masago would fail at suicide so many times, particularly
considering the first method she says tried: driving her dagger into her neck.
Masago says that Takehiro was repulsed by her after the rape. This is not true
according to the other accounts. From Takehiro's story, it is clear that he is furious
at her, but he claims that this is because she asked Tajomaru to kill him. In
Tajomaru's version, he still loves her so much that he is willing to fight to the
death for her.
Takehiro introduces a new and unlikely character: the person who stole
the dagger from his chest, conveniently, mere seconds before his death. Masago
and Takehiro claim that Tajomaru violently kicked her after the rape. Tajomaru
does not mention this.
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Ultimately we come to the brief conclusion that every character says at
least one thing that is refuted by another.
The name of the story “In a Grove” has become an idiom in Japan, and is
used to signify a situation where no conclusion can be drawn, because evidence is
insufficient or contradictory. Similar terms include - In the dark and In the fog.
Akutagawa excelled in examining the darker side of humanity in his
writings. On analyzing all the characters in the story “In a Grove”, one realizes
that each character has their own agenda; hence, each person gives a different
account of the story. Also, an important aspect of the story deals with truth.
Akutagawa challenges the reader to ponder the age old question, what is the truth?
Akutagawa using his literary genius leaves the reader to struggle to understand the
motivations of the characters.
Akutagawa never makes it clear in the story “In a Grove”, as to who
committed the crime. We are also kept wondering as to what does each person
gain by taking responsibility. Tajomaru claims to have murdered the samurai. The
opening lines of his testimony make it clear that the police commissioner will
have him tortured if he does not speak, so Tajomaru prepares to tell him a good
story. Further, he seems evasive when it comes to the whereabouts of the girl, so
he may be attempting to mask his reluctance to discuss her with the overstated
story of the murder.
Finally, he seems certain that he will be executed, so he wishes the
maximum penalty which will, no doubt, add to his legendary status as the
notorious brigand called Tajomaru. Killing a highly-trained samurai warrior in a
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fair fight in a contest for the hand of a beautiful woman would certainly be a path
to a reputation that would endure even after his execution. The woman confesses
that she murdered her husband, but perhaps she does so to add believability to her
claim that she also attempted to commit suicide. The warrior confesses that he
committed suicide with his wife's small sword. This is certainly a better story than
being murdered with a single sword stroke while being tied to a tree. The point
one comes to realize while analyzing the story is that all of the seven testimonies
seem to be filled with oddities and inconsistencies.
The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory defines Modernism
as:
Modernism is a comprehensive but vague term for a movement
that began to get under way in the closing years of the 19th c. and
which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the
20th c. Some theorists suggest that the movement was at its height
during the 1920s while others contend that it is not actually over.
As far as literature is concerned, modernism reveals a breaking
away from established rules, traditions and conventions, fresh
ways of looking at man's position and function in the universe and
many (in some cases remarkable) experiments in form and style. It
is particularly concerned with language and how to use it as—
representational or otherwise.
Akutagawa has abandoned the omniscient narrator in favour of a more
distant and objective style. His style gives the narrative as a collection of
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testimonies. According to the definition of modernism, Akutagawa has
experimented in form and the modernist reaction against positive knowledge. The
form here is a reflection of the Buddhist theme of the uncertainty of the world.
One can see a contrasting view between Akutagawa’s ambiguity and Kurosawa's
rendering of definitive version of events. The film Rashomon, end with the sun
burst and baby adoption in the end, this appears forced and this is contrary to
Akutagawa's ending in the story “In a Grove”, which portrays dark vision. It is
helpful to point out, however that Kurosawa produced his film for an audience
which was already beaten down by the hardships of war.
Fig. 15. The film Rashomon. Picture from bostonist.com
Akutagawa unravels how the tradition of religion gets tarnished in his
story. First there is the merest suggestion that the Buddhist priest is a bit more
attached to the objects and inhabitants of this world than he claims to be. Second,
Tajomaru describes the lady as a Bodhisattva, one who has achieved
enlightenment but who postpones nirvana to help enlighten others.
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The spirituality implied is thoroughly weak, for the woman's heavenly beauty
only inspires the brutal act of rape. Further, if the lady is lying during the course
of her confession, the fact that she seeks refuge in the Shimizu Temple is also
ironic.
There is a disparity between the ideal and the actual role of women in
Akutagawa's vision. There is a certain ambiguity surrounding the woman. On the
one hand, she is as lovely as a Bodhisattva, but there is also the suggestion that
she is a sword-wielding manipulator. What is clear, however, is that the brutal
violation of the woman is at the center of this dark tale. The woman in
Akutagawa's story is vulnerable, pushed violently into the depths of the darkness.
Kurosawa's film seems to capture some of this; in particular, one scene depicts the
woman on the ground with her cursing husband towering over her on one side and
Tajomaru on the other, his legs bestraddled. The camera view is through the legs
of Tajomaru, making the woman's denigration painfully apparent.
Akutagawa has inverted the medieval themes and motifs in his story “In A
Grove”. The courtly love motif of kaimami or view through a fence seems to be
alluded to when a providential puff of wind allows Tajomaru to catch a glimpse of
the lady's face. Rather than initiating a highly stylized courtly love story,
however, the view is the catalyst for rape. Further, the Buddhist theme of
reincarnation that prompts a rash of love suicides in both literature and life during
the Edo period is inverted by Akutagawa as well. As the woman tells it, she is
willing to commit murder-suicide, not so that she will be reborn in another life
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with her husband, but so that she can turn her back on shame and self-loathing;
thus, it is an end rather than a beginning.
The story is filled with half-truths and evasions designed to enhance each
speaker's reputation. And finally, the tale ends in silence, a deep silence like that
of the dead in their graves. Thus, language disappears altogether. Akutagawa’s
tale unravels the fabric of society and the traditions of honor on which it is based.
With amazing economy, Akutagawa brilliantly sets the symbolic stage
with the very first sentence of “Rashomon”, “It was a chilly evening. A servant of
a samurai stood under the Rashomon, waiting for a break in the rain. No one else
was under the wide gate.” (34)
In the story “Rashomon”, a recently dismissed servant waiting under the
Rashomon gate on a rainy day finds a woman picking out the hair of a corpse. She
explains that, before dying of the plague, the person had once sold dried snake
flesh to the men at the guard barracks, claiming it was dried fish. The old woman
explains to the servant that both she and the corpse had done what was necessary
to survive. Hearing her tale, the servant robs her and runs away. The rain at the
end of the day is an indication of the bleak scene, and the setting itself is also
suggestive of the story’s harsh world.
“Rashomon” is a short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke based on tales
from the Konjaku Monogatarishu. The story was first published in 1915
in Teikoku Bungaku. Despite its name, it provided no direct plot material for
the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon, which was based on Akutagawa's 1921
short story, “In a Grove” and certain elements from the story “Rashomon”.
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As has been said, the servant was waiting for the break in the rain.
But he had not particular idea of what to do after the rain stopped.
Ordinarily, of course, he would have returned to his master’s
house, but he had been discharged just before. The prosperity of
the city of Kyoto had been rapidly declining, and he had been
dismissed by his master, whom he had served many years, because
of the effect of this decline. Thus, confined by the rain, he was at a
loss to know where to go. And the weather had not a little to do
with his depressed mood. (36-37)
The story recounts an encounter between a servant and an old woman in
the dilapidated Rashomon Gate, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes
dumped. The man, recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to
become a thief so he can survive. When he goes upstairs in the building to find a
place to sleep, he encounters an old woman, who is cutting the hair off of the dead
bodies on the second floor. Disgusted, he decides then that he would rather take
the path of righteousness even if it means starvation. He is furious with the
woman, but she explains that she steals hair to make wigs so she can survive.
The next moment his hand dropped and he stared. He caught sight
of a ghoulish form bent over a corpse. It seemed to be an old
woman, gaunt, gray-haired, and nunnish in appearance. With a
pine torch in her right hand, she was peeping into the face of a
corpse which had long black hair.
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Seized with horror than curiosity, he even forgot to breathe for a
time. He felt the hair of his head and body stand on end. As he
watched, terrified, she wedged the torch between two floors boards
and, laying hands on the head of the corpse, began to pull out the
long hairs one by one, as a monkey kills the lice of her young. The
hair came out smoothly with the movement of her hands.
As the hair came out, fear faded from him heart, and his hatred
towards the old woman mounted. It grew beyond hatred, becoming
a consuming antipathy against all evil. At this instant if anyone had
brought up the question of whether he would starve to death or
become a thief – the question of which had occurred to him a little
while ago – he would not have hesitated to choose death. His
hatred towards evil flared up like the piece of pine wood which the
old woman had stuck in the floor.
He did not know why she pulled out the hair of the dead.
Accordingly, he did not know whether her case was to be put down
as good or bad. (39-40)
In addition, she tells him that the woman whose body she is currently
robbing cheated people during her lifetime, by selling dried snake meat and
claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it
allowed the woman to survive, and in turn entitles her to steal from the dead
person, because if she does not, she too will starve.
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I pull the hair… I pull out the hair… to make a wig.
Indeed, making wigs out of the hair of the dead may seem a great
evil to you, but these that are here deserve no better. This woman,
whose beautiful black hair I was pulling, used to sell cut and dried
snake flesh at the guard barracks, saying that it was dried fish. If
she hadn’t died of the plague, she’d be selling it now. The guards
liked to buy from her, and used to say her fish was tasty. What she
did couldn’t be wrong because if she hadn’t, she would have
starved to death. There was no other choice. If she knew I had to
do this in order to live, she probably wouldn’t care. (42)
The man responds saying that, "Then, you won't mind if I strip you of
your clothes. If I don't, I too will starve." He brutally disrobes the old woman,
takes her kimono and disappears into the night.
Then it’s right if I rob you, I’d starve if I didn’t.
He tore her clothes from her body and kicked her roughly down on
the corpses as she struggled and tried to clutch his leg. Five steps,
and he was at the top of the stairs. The yellow clothes he had
wrested off were under his arm, and in a twinkling he had rushed
down the steep stairs into the abyss of night. The thunder of his
descending steps pounded in the hollow tower, and then it was
quiet.
Shortly after that the hag raised up her body from the corpses.
Grumbling and groaning, she crawled to the top stair by the still
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flickering torchlight, and through the gray hair which hung over
her face, she peered down to the last stair in the torch light.
Beyond this was only darkness…. Unknowing and unknowing.
(43-44)
Akutagawa has tried to question the values of the society in the story
“Rashomon”. He dramatizes the complexities of human psychology and analyze
with a Zen taste for paradox, precariously balancing the illusion and reality.
Akutagawa’s has a unique, original story telling method and most of his
themes are interesting. His short stories reveal unity, density, and brevity. The
stories of Akutagawa, like other Japanese short stories have a specific kind of
beauty hidden within them, which are currently less unknown compared to the
Western Literature.
The remarkable 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon, combines
elements from two of Akutagawa’s stories, “In A Grove” and “Rashomon”,
fusing the two stories which originally were not connected to each other.
Kurosawa’s film focuses on Akutagawa’s “In A Grove”, dramatizing the
conflicting narratives of the husband, the wife and the robber. However, as a
frame to the main narrative, he includes a priest, a woodcutter and a commoner
talking together under the Rashomon gate on a rainy day. The woodcutter, who
discovered the body of the husband, introduces the stories of the robber, the wife
and the husband. Kurosawa adds a new element to the story at the end of the film,
when the woodcutter agrees to adopt an abandoned baby. The film Rashomon is
acclaimed for its achievement in both literary and film-making world. Rashomon
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won the first prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, then the best known of the
European film prizes.
Takashi Kojima, the translator of Akutagawa’s Rashomon, informs:
The Rashomon was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of
Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped with
a ridgepole; its stone wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was
constructed in 789 and in 794 the capital of Japan was transferred
to Kyoto. With the decline of Kyoto in the twelfth century, the
gate fell into disrepair, cracking and crumbling in many places.
An excerpt by Richie Donald from Kurosawa’s autobiography says:
This background information might help students visualize the
setting of the stories. The original gate has been destroyed, so
Kurosawa had constructed a model of it, based on his observations
of extant gates, for the set of his movie. ( 114).
The story of the film in brief is on an isolated bush trail in 12th Century
Japan, a woman is brutally raped and her husband is found murdered nearby.
Rashomon conveys the story of their final hours together from the points of view
of four witnesses. First, a woodsman Takashi Shimura, who claims to have
discovered the body, followed by a captured bandit Toshiro Mifune who seems
happy to confess all. The surviving wife share her harrowing tale, an account that
is only bettered by a shocking revelation from the dead man himself,
communicating via a typically eccentric medium.
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In a film that leaves the viewer wondering who to believe, it is not all that
surprising to find that we are also faced with a very negative view of mankind.
Lies, treachery and callousness are found to be plentiful. The discovery of a dead
samurai in Japan in the 12th Century was nothing special considering the country
had been enduring years of war, famine and plague. It is the method of the man's
betrayal that makes the situation so shocking. He may have been simply murdered
at the whim of a passing bandit, or it could have been a cold betrayal on the part
of his dissatisfied, yet highly decorated wife. The viewer is given the facts at
hand, and is left to draw their own conclusions.
In its time, Rashomon was considered by many as an experimental or art
house piece of work, even though it went on to gather awards at festivals around
the globe. Kurosawa applied many unique camera angles and utilized long shots
with the camera mounted on a complicated trolley system; all stylistic devices that
had not been used on screen before to that scale. In fact, Kurosawa is recorded as
saying proudly that the camera had a starring role in the film Rashomon. The
film's use of light and shadow is similarly striking, and the effects seem subtle.
Applying them to specific scenes was quite an involving process for Kurosawa.
Production of the film was threatened twice by fires at the Daiei studio, the
second occurring only four days before the film was due to premiere. Despite
many members of the crew being overcome by toxic fumes coming from the
burning celluloid, only one reel of negative was lost in the fire and the film
debuted to schedule.
The film includes famous dialogues like:
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Commoner: But is there anyone who's really good? Maybe
goodness is just make-believe.
Priest: What a frightening...
Commoner: Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in
the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way.
Another one on the same lines:
Priest: If men don't trust each other, this earth might as well be
hell.
Commoner: Right. The world's a kind of hell.
Priest: No! I don't want to believe that!
Commoner: No one will hear you, no matter how loud you shout.
Just think. Which one of these stories do you
believe?
Woodcutter: None makes any sense.
Commoner: Don't worry about it. It isn't as if men were reasonable.
The film Rashomon provokes reflection upon philosophical themes such
as perspectivism, ambiguity, and moral responsibility. It stands to this day as a
fascinating, thought-provoking, and visually arresting film, one of the many
jewels in Kurosawa's magnificent directorial crown.
The third-person narrator of both fiction and film has largely come under
attack by postmodern artists. By showing us its various interpretations, Kurosawa
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has shown first that human beings are incapable of judging reality, much less
truth, and, second, that they must continually deceive themselves if they are to
remain true to themselves. The film initially adopts Akutagawa's challenge to
objective narration only to reveal an overall structural force bringing meaning to
the film as a whole.
While there is no obvious connection between the plots or the characters
of the two stories, Kurosawa clearly saw some similarities or links in the two
stories. Though we may not know all the similarities, one important similarity is
that the dark view of human nature is implied by each story.
Kurosawa in his film Rashomon discards the central plot, the story of the
old woman pulling hair from the corpse and the man who robs her from
Akutagawa’s story Rashomon. While Kurosawa uses the setting, the decaying
gate and the rainy day. He has his characters refer to the natural disasters that
have plagued the city and to discarded corpses lying on the top of the gate.
Just as Akutagawa adds the description of the setting to suggest that the
actions of his characters are not isolated events but are integral parts of a world
where everything is disintegrating and falling apart, the opening of Kurosawa’s
film prepares the viewer to hear a tale of terrible events and to see those events as
part of a fragmented, decaying world. This is how Kurosawa shapes the viewer’s
perception of the heart of the film.
Akutagawa closes both his stories at a very bleak moment in the lives of
the characters, without offering the reader any possibility of renewal or salvation.
Whereas Kurosawa in the movie offers the possibility that, as the
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commoner declares: the world we live in is a hell, it also offers the possibility that
individuals within this hell may act with compassion and decency. This closing of
the movie counters the darkness of Akutagawa’s stories. An important dialogue
from the film quotes :
Commoner: Well, men are only men. That's why they lie. They can't tell
the truth, even to themselves.
Priest: That may be true. Because men are weak, they lie to deceive
themselves.
Commoner: Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie if it's
interesting.
“Yam Gruel” features a bumbling protagonist Goi whose greatest
ambition was to eat his fill of this aristocratic delicacy. When he is presented with
an opportunity to fulfill his ambition, however, things do not go the way he
imagined.
One day on his way from Sanjomon to Shinsen-en, he saw several
children gathered at the roadside. Thinking they might be spinning
tops, he watched them, from behind, and found them thrashing a
stray, shaggy dog, held by a rope fastened round his neck. The shy
Goi had almost always been too timid to translate into action
whatever he might have really felt. But on this occasion, since they
were children, he could muster up some courage.
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“Please spare him,” he said, smiling as broadly as possible and
patting the shoulder of the boy who seemed the oldest of the group.
“If you hit the dog, you’ll hurt him.”
The boy looked back, and turning up his eyes, stared at him
contemptuously. “Mind your own business,” he retorted. And,
taking a step backward, he pouted his proud lips and shouted,
“What? You, red-nosed wretch!”
Goi felt as if these words had struck his face. It was not that he had
taken the least offence at the boy’s abusive language, but that he
felt miserable for having disgraced himself by an unnecessary
remark. Concealing his shame with a bitter smile, he silently went
on towards Shinsen-en. The children behind made faces and thrust
out their tongues at him. Of course he did not see them. Even if he
had, it would have made no difference to the spiritless Goi. (50-51)
Goi is frail and old, unwanted and mistreated by everyone including his
master. His subordinates ignore his words and carry on with whatever they were
doing. Goi is even bullied by disobedient children in the street, when he attempts
to interfere in stopping a stray being beaten. Goi is not confrontational, nor is he
argumentative. He is timid in his approach to life, asking for nothing, and only
carrying out what is asked for him day in and day out.
In fact, at the place where he works, people are least interested is talking
to Goi that hand signals are considered sufficient and worthy enough to talk with
him. If he fails to understand he is punished or simply ignored. Goi is never
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annoyed with this, although he does not love his job, he is grateful for having it,
and therefore never complains.
Every year a ceremony is held by the master of the house. As tradition
permits, the subordinates are allowed to join the master for a meal and drinks. It is
perhaps the only time that Goi looks forward to. It is the only time he gets the
chance to eat yam gruel. The smell, the taste, and the entire experience enthralls
him. With not much to look forward to, this is the most he can hope for. This year
however, there are more workers, and thus the portion of yam gruel received is
less than last year.
And, thought it may have been only his fancy, it seemed that the
yam gruel tasted more delicious than usual. After he had finished
it, his eyes were still riveted on the empty bowl. Wiping the drops
off his thin mustache, he remarked to someone nearby, “I wonder
if I shall ever eat my fill of yam gruel.”
“He says he hasn’t had enough yam gruel,” someone laughed. It
was a sonorous and dignified warrior-like voice. Goi, raising his
head, looked timidly toward the speaker. The voice came from
Fujiwara Toshihito, the son of Tokinaga, who was Finance
Minister under the regency of Mototsune. (52-53)
Goi is troubled, and mutters that he has not had his fill of yam gruel. Over
hearing this is the son of the master of the house. Everyone else also over hears
and mock Goi’s comment. The master’s son asks Goi if he would like some more
yam gruel, and Goi is aware that he would be the butt of jokes regardless of his
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answer. He kindly accepts the son’s offer, but the son just laughs and the night
continues.
Goi, unfortunately, cannot remove the thought of yam gruel from his
mind. Nor can he forget the son’s offer of more yam gruel. Goi goes to sleep,
thinking of yam gruel and wakes up wanting the same. He has been tempted and
teased and he wishes for more.
“Lord bless me!” Goi blubbered out. “First I thought our
destination was Higashiyama, but it turned out to be the Mie
Temple. Finally you tell me you’re going to take me to Tsuruga
in Echizen. Whatever do you mean? If you’d told me so at first, I’d
have brought my servant with me at least…. Tsuruga, Lord bless
me!”
If his cravings for yam gruel had not encouraged him, he would
probably have left Toshihito and returned to Kyoto alone.
“Consider one Toshihito a thousand men strong. You needn’t
worry about our trip.” Toshihito scoffed, frowning slightly as he
saw Goi’s consternation. (59)
Much to Goi’s surprise, the son keeps his promise, and offers Goi a horse
to take a journey, at the end of which he would receive his yam gruel. It is several
days of travel, when the son finally reveals where they are headed for a long
journey, and Goi suddenly loses the interest in traveling. Still, appreciative and
idolizing, Goi accepts the situation as it is and continues to travel with the son.
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Upon reaching their destination, the home of the son’s family, including
his father-in-law and wife, the son looks after Goi as he would any guest,
providing clothing, water and so on. Goi is still appreciative, but upon riding to
the destination, the son had a malicious grin about him.
So after all he was to have yam gruel. When he thought of this, the
old uneasiness which had left him because of the distraction of
what was happening outside, came back again. His perverse
reluctance of being treated to yam gruel too soon grew stronger
than ever, and it continued to dominate his thoughts. Such an early
realization of his heart’s desire seemed to turn years of patient
waiting into a vain endeavor. If possible, he wished that something
unexpected would happen to keep him from eating yam gruel for a
while. (67)
Goi’s appetite for yam has departed, as it has been on his mind since the
night of the ceremony. He has watched the yams collate and the cauldrons set. As
the yam gruel is made, the scent is enough for Goi, and he no longer wishes to eat.
Goi’s sickness of yam is cured, and the thought of eating yam would be too much.
However, obligated by his journey for yams, he amuses the son and his father-inlaw by forcing himself to eat the gruel.
Naturally enough, when Goi, who had watched these things, was
served yam gruel in a huge pitcher, he wiped his perspiring brow
in embarrassment.
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“I hear you haven’t had your fill of yam gruel,” said Arihito’s
father-in-law, “please help yourself without reserve.” And he
ordered the servant boys to bring several more large pitchers of
yam gruel. Goi put about half of the yam gruel from the pitcher
into a big earthen vessel, and closing his eyes, he reluctantly drank
it off, his red nose becoming all the redder.
“As my father said, you needn’t be hesitant.” Grinning
maliciously, Toshihito also pressed Goi to have another pitcherful
of yam gruel. Goi was in a terrible plight. Frankly, he had not
wanted to eat even one bowlful of yam gruel even at the beginning.
With great endurance he managed to do justice to half a pitcherful
of it. If he took any more, he thought he would throw it up before
swallowing it. But to refuse to eat any more would be to spurn the
kindness of Toshihito and Arihito. So closing his eyes again, he
drained off a third of the remaining half. He could not take another
mouthful. (69-70)
“Yam Gruel” provides a rather obvious moral tale, looking at greed as
well as the influence on subordinates by their masters, ensuring obedience and
reminding them of their place. Goi’s desire to have yam gruel turns from luxury
to burden, to repulsion, perhaps indicative of the methods used to apply control.
This story may seem a bit silly but it’s deeper than it seems. All his life
Goi wanted to satisfy his craving of yam gruel which was the only objective he
seemed to have in his simple, common life. He thought that by satisfying his deep
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desire for this delicacy he would become happy, but in reality this craving of his
was like a longing to fill that emptiness he had within him. This made him
miserable and tormented throughout his life.
Watching the fox eat its meal, Goi looked back with fond longing
on his past life before the time he had come to Tsuruga. What he
remembered was that he had been made a fool of by many
warriors, and reviled even by Kyoto boys with “What? You Red
Nose!” and that he was a pitiful, lonely being, with faded silk robe
and nondescript sword, who wandered about Sujaku Avenue like a
homeless mongrel. But at the same time he had been happy,
treasuring up his desire to gorge himself on yam gruel. (71)
Depressed people often crave for food, and have a tendency to have an
aspiration to eat a lot of sweets, believing that this would make them happy. They
go through extreme measures to obtain their desires but in the end they realize
that these are only a temporary relief to what is really troubling them. Goi seems
to be lying to himself thinking that he would end up a happy man when his
cravings of yam gruel would be satisfied.
On the other hand the simpler message is that of having too much of a
good thing. Goi once had something to look forward to, but after the experience
would be lacking that one thing. The development of Goi is cautious and careful,
ensuring a gradual rather than rapid change. We see his confidence grow over the
days, with the respect and courtesy offered by the master’s son, and then suddenly
it all comes tumbling down.
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On one level Goi’s hunger and his ultimate inability to fulfill it might be
interpreted as a spiritual thirst, which he is unable to quench. Sometimes, a high
degree of spiritual quotient is required for this search. Goi becomes a symbol of
the lower masses of humanity who live on a physical plane and cannot understand
and do not know how to find the ultimate peace. Akutagawa reflects on this lot of
mankind suffering and struggling through the character of Goi.
The story “The Martyr” starts with two wise quotes and goes further like
this :
Even if one liveth to be three hundred years of age in excess of
pleasure, it is but as a dream compared with everlasting pleasure
- Guide do Pecador.
He who walketh the path of goodness shall enjoy the mysterious
sweetness which prevadeth the doctrine.
– Imitatione Christi.
One Christmas night some years ago a young Japanese boy was
found exhausted and starving at the entrance to the Church of
Santa Lucia in Nagasaki. He was taken in and cared for by the
Jesuit brothers who were coming into the church. He was given the
name Lorenzo, and was thereafter brought up in the church under
the wing of the Jesuit missionaries.
When the brothers asked him about his birth and parents, he never
revealed his history, but gave such evasive answers as, “My home
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is paradise,” and “My father is the Father of all.” His disarming
smile dispelled further questioning as to his past.
It was, however, evident from the blue rosary on his wrist that his
family had not been heathens. Perhaps that was the reason why the
kindly fathers and brothers took Lorenzo to their heart. (72-73)
“The Martyr” is a Christian tale of misunderstanding, deceit, betrayal,
lies and death which inevitably leads to the reaffirming of faith amongst those
that have sinned. “The Martyr” was taken from Volume II of The Legenda
Aurea. This story is presumably a truthful record of a happening which took
place in a Christian church at Nagasaki in those days.
“The Martyr” is set in the 6th Century and involves an orphan raised by
Jesuits and there is a classic twist in this tale when questions pertaining to child
paternity arise. The primary theme in “The Martyr’ is the nature of pure religious
faith and the psychology of the martyr, based on a legend dealing with the early
Japanese Christians living in the area of Nagasaki.
The story in both the print and animated forms appears, at first, to be a
simple and moving children's story working from Christian themes and biblical
allusions. On Christmas night, a young homeless orphan stumbles into small,
rural Christian church during the Christmas service. Lorenzo is accepted by the
congregation because of a Christian rosary on his wrist. But where he came
from or who his parents were remain mysteries. He only says that his home is
paradise, and his father is the Father of all. The boy's apparent purity and piety
make the people see him as an Angel sent by God.
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However, once he happened to pick up in the back garden of
Santa Lucia a love letter from the girl addressed to Lorenzo.
Thrusting it into Lorenzo’s face, and threatening and coaxing,
Simeon questioned him in many ways. But Lorenzo, his
handsome face blushing, merely said, “I hear the girl has given
her heart to me, but I only received letters from her, and I have
never even talked with her.” Simeon, who felt the weight of the
town’s opinion, pressed further questions on his brother.
Lorenzo, gazing at the other with his sad, reproachful look,
said, “Do I look like a liar even to you?” and left the room like
a swallow leaving his nest. (75)
For three years Simeon, a former samurai and now a brother in the
church, takes care of the boy like a younger brother, directing his saintliness
toward some religious role and destiny. But when Ine, the umbrella maker's
daughter, accuses Lorenzo of being the father of her unborn child, the village
people and Simeon turn on the boy refusing to believe his innocence and
banishing him.
The most pitiable of all was Simeon, who had been Lorenzo’s
dearest friend. More vexed by being deceived than grieved at his
being driven away, Simeon struck Lorenzo full in his handsome
face as he went sadly out of the doorway into the cold winter
blast. Knocked off balance by the blow, Lorenzo fell down. But
he got up slowly, and looking up to the sky with tearful eyes, he
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prayed in a quivering voice; “Lord, forgive Simeon, for he
knows not what he does.” Disheartened by these words, Simeon
only went on slashing and flailing his arms for a time at the
doorway.
Finally restrained by the other brothers, he folded his arms, and
with his face as fierce as the threatening sky, he glared
resentfully at the back of Lorenzo who was sorrowfully leaving
the gate of Santa Lucia. (76)
After a year of wandering in exile, Lorenzo returns just as a raging fire
sweeps through the village. Plunging into the inferno, he saves the child he has
supposedly fathered, at the cost of his own life. As a tearful Ine confesses over
the body that Lorenzo was not the father, the people discover the truth:
Lorenzo was a young woman.
The infant, whom Lorenzo had thrown with his last desperate
strength as he was struck by the fall of the burning beam,
fortunately dropped unhurt at the feet of the mother. (82)
The umbrella- maker’s daughter, choked with tears, had been
pressing her baby to her breast, now threw herself on her knees at
the feet of the Father Superior and made an unexpected confession
of her love affair: “This baby girl is not a child by Lorenzo. To tell
you the truth, this is a child I had by becoming intimate with the
son of the heathen family next door.” The trembling of the
distracted girl’s voice and the glistening of her eyes bathed in tears
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proved beyond all doubt that there was not a shadow of falsehood
in her confession. (83)
At that time the outcries, “Martyr,” “Martyr!” surged up from
among the Christians who crowded around two and three deep.
“Out of his love for the sinner,” the voices cried, “he degraded
himself to beggary, following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But no man, not even the Father Superior whom he looked
up to as his father, and Simeon whom he relied on as his brother,
knew his heart. What is this but a martyr?” (84)
This simple story and the surprise revelation of Lorenzo's identity tend
to reveal the nature of pure religious faith and martyrdom. The story could
provide a springboard to the study of the religions of Japan and how Japanese
although two thirds of the population claim not to be actively religious, draw
on aspects of Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity in their lives.
The tears could not stop flowing from the Father’s shriveled
cheeks. Suddenly the umbrella-maker and Simeon stared. The
eyes of all followed their to two soft, pure breasts, which stood
out among the rags on the chest of the angel, now lying silently
at the gate of Santa Lucia, bathed in the light of the fire red as
the blood of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. Now on Lorenzo’s
sorely burned face, its natural gentleness and beauty could no
longer be concealed. It may have been only a moment – it
seemed like an eternity – before the entire assembly realized
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that Lorenzo was not a boy but a girl. Yes, Lorenzo was a girl!
Lorenzo was a girl! Behold! With the flames raging at their
back, the brethren circled around Lorenzo, stood in awe and
wonder with their eyes fastened on the martyr. Lorenzo, driven
out of Santa Lucia on the false charge of adultery, was fair girl
of this country like the umbrella- maker’s daughter herself.
Soon the silence was broken by the sad, solemn chanting of the
scriptures by the reverend Father, his had raised aloft. When his
chanting ceased, “Lorenzo,” he called, and the fair-eyed girl
quietly breathed her last, with a faint, peaceful smile on her lips,
looking up into the glory of Heaven for beyond the dark night.
Nothing else is known of the life of this girl. Yet what does it
matter? For the sublimity of life culminates in the most precious
moment of inspiration. (85-86)
In his last years before his suicide at age 35, Akutagawa was
increasingly interested in Christianity and the theme and psychology of selfsacrifice. “The Martyr” written in 1918, nine years before his death, was one
of around fifteen stories dealing with early Japanese Christians and their
struggles to hold on to their religious faith.
The story “Kesa and Morito” is told via two different monologues. Kesa
and Morito are illicit lovers, and Morito is driven to kill Kesa’s husband. Here’s
the dilemma — Morito doesn’t hate the man and he doesn’t love Kesa but he feels
Kesa is compelling him to do it. Kesa doesn’t love Morito either, but is fascinated
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because Morito mirrors the ugliness she sees in herself. Out of guilt, Kesa
switches with her husband on the night Morito comes to kill him. It’s also
fascinating how the story tests the very thin line between love and hate.
Looking at the moon in a pensive mood, Morito walks on the
fallen leaves outside the fence of his house.
Morito’s Monologue: The moon is rising now. I usually wait for
moonrise impatiently. But tonight the bright moonrise shocks me
with horror. I shudder to think that tonight will destroy my present
self and turn me into a wretched murderer. Imagine when these
hands will have turned crimson with blood! What a cursed being I
shall seem to myself then! My heart would not be so wrung with
pain if I were to kill an enemy I hate, but tonight I have to kill a
man whom I do not hate.
But do I really love Kesa? Our love affair may be separated into
two stages, the past and the present. I loved her before she married
Wataru, or I thought I did. But now that I look into my heart, I find
there were many motives. What did I want from her? (90-91)
A man who feels neither love nor hate must kill someone he does not hate
at the request of a lover he does not love. This is one of the most soap-operatic
kinds of tales with just the right amount of freshness. The story is based on the
plot of self-sacrifice as a traditional Japanese cultural ideal and as an act growing
out of the complex emotional states of love, guilt, anger and vengeance.
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Laugh, if you wish, at my cowardice. This is the action of one who
did not know how base his paramour could be. “If I don’t kill her
husband, she will kill me one way or another. I must kill him else
she will kill me,” I thought desperately, looking into her tearless
but crying eyes.
What is that great power which impels me, this coward ‘me’, to
murder an innocent man? I cannot tell. I cannot tell. But
possibly…. No, it cannot be. I despise her. I fear her. I hate her.
And yet, and yet, it may be because I love her.
Morito, continuing to pace, says no more. The singing of a ballad
comes out of the night. The human mind is in the dark. With not a
light to shine upon. It burns a fire of worldly cares. To go and fade
in but a span. (94-95)
It is the story of a samurai's obsessive love for a beautiful noblewoman
who is already married. Akutagawa's study demythologizes the historical and
traditional ideal in the story. His Kesa and her obsessed lover Morito are revealed
through interior confessional monologues which uncover the layers of conflicting
emotions and motives.
At night under a lamp, Kesa, lost in thought, biting her sleeves,
stands with her back toward the light.
Kesa’s Monologue: Is he coming or isn’t he, I wonder. It’s highly
unlikely that he isn’t. The moon is already sinking, but not a
footstep can be heard, so he may have changed his mind. If he
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should not come, I shall have to live in shame day after day, like a
prostitute. How can I be so lost to shame and evil? For I shall be no
better than a dead body tossed by the roadside. I shall be
dishonoured and trampled on, with my shame brought to light. And
yet I shall have to be silent as if dumb. In that case I shall carry my
regret beyond the grave. I’m sure he’ll come. (97)
The two sides which are presented in the story are, firstly Morito
struggles with his conscience on why he made such a rash decision to say he
would kill Kesa’s husband. Morito also feels hatred towards Kesa, having
dishonoured her, for not being as beautiful as he had assumed, for being uglier
in the light than he had expected. This tells about a case of his high
expectations met with the disappointment of Kesa, resulting in shame and
disgust being directed at her than himself. Morito comes across as a pathetic
man, but at the same time emphatically weak as he fears Kesa.
But how can a woman’s heart ever be comforted once it has known
the ugliness of her own person? I was mortified, horrified, grieved.
How much better was the lurid uneasiness of the eclipse of the
moon which I saw as a child in my nurse’s arm, compared to the
ghostly despair that darkened my mind at that moment! All the
visions and dreams I had in my heart vanished. The loneliness of a
rainy dawn enshrouded me quietly. Shuddering with loneliness, I
finally gave up my body, which was as good as dead, into the arms
of a man I did not live – into the arms of a lascivious man who
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hates and despises me. Could I not endure my loneliness since my
ugliness was vividly shown to me? (98)
Secondly the tale deals with Kesa’s awareness of his disgust, even
though he’s not aware that she knows it already. The options that are left for
Kesa if Morito does not carry out his promise according to their plan, is rather
challenging. Kesa comes to term with the shame and disgust she feels in
herself for shaming her husband and for dishonouring herself in a moment of
lust for a man, a would be killer, that she does not even love. The torment that
both Kesa and Morito feel, in their act of stupidity is brilliantly portrayed with
imagination and emotion.
“Let’s kill Wataru,” and his mustache touched my ears as I was
sobbing. The instant I heard these words, I felt strangely enlivened.
Yes, I felt lively and bright as pale moonlight, if moonlight can be
said to be bright. After all, was I not comforted by these words?
Oh, am I not – is not a woman a being that feels joy in being loved
by a man even if she has to kill her own husband?
I continued to weep for some time with a lonely and lively feeling
like moonlight. When did I ever promise to give a helping hand in
this murder of my husband?
Not until then had my husband entered my mind. I honestly say
“not until then.” Until that time my mind was wholly occupied
with myself and my dishonor. Then I saw the image of my
husband’s smiling face. Probably the moment I remembered his
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face, the plan flashed across my mind. At that time I was already
determined to die, and I was glad of my decision.
Is it really because of my love for my husband that I am going to
die for him? No, it is merely that under such reasonable pretext, I
want to atone for my sin of having slept with another. (99-100)
The dilemmatic situation where Morito has to choose between breaking
his promise and committing murder is wonderfully portrayed in the story. The
main motives in “Kesa and Morito” are pride, cowardice, and hatred, while
Morito’s display of love is fake. His choice results in Kesa’s death and him being
a murderer.
I am going to die not for my husband but for myself. I am going to
die to punish my lover’s having hurt my heart and for my grudge at
his having sullied my body. Oh, not only am I unworthy of living
but unworthy of dying.
But now, how much better it is to die even an ignominious death,
than to live. Smiling a forced smile, I repeatedly promised to kill
my husband with him. Since he is quick-witted, he must have
sensed from my words what the consequences would be if he
broke his promise. So it seems impossible that after making such a
promise he should fall back on it. Is that the sound of the wind?
When I think that my afflictions from that day are at last coming to
an end tonight, I feel at ease. Tomorrow will not fail to shed its
cold light on my headless body. If my husband sees it, he will…
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no, I won’t think of him. My husband loves me. But I have no
strength to return his love. I can love only one man. And that very
man is coming to kill me tonight. Even this rushlight is too bright
for me, tortured by my lover as I am.
Kesa blows out the light. Soon the faint sound of the opening of a
shutter is heard, and pale moonlight floods in. (100-101)
Akutagawa's story “Kesa and Morito” is a dark, personal, disillusioned
view of traditional ideals in 1918 Japan. It’s a brilliant story about making rash
promises, about honour, and all is not as it seems. Without the consideration of
motives and consequences, all the actions will be judged as morally wrong. It is
obviously necessary to consider the factors of motives and consequences in
making moral judgment toward other people’s actions.
Akutagawa’s stories are made up of illusions and confusions; they give a
psychological insight into the hollowness of relationships. No relationship is
satisfying in this story of “Keas and Morito”. One realizes that in a licentious
relationship nobody is happy or at peace.
“The Dragon” is a short story first published in a collection of Akutagawa
short stories, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshu. The story is based on a thirteenthcentury Japanese tale, with Akutagawa’s Taisho literary interpretations of modern
psychology and the nature of religion.
The short story was written at the outset of the Taisho Period, a period
from about 1912 to 1926 and showcases much of the influence the period had on
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modern Taisho writers. Like much of Akutagawa's works, it contains a fusion of
ancient settings and modern thought enlightening the mindset of the individual.
On a certain night, Hanazo, that is, Ohana-no-Kurodo Tokugyo,
the priest, came alone to the pond of Sarusawa, without the
company of his disciples, and set up, on the bank in front of the
weeping willow, a notice-board which said in bold characters, “On
March third a dragon shall ascend from this pond.” But as a matter
of fact, he didn’t know whether or not a dragon really lived in the
pond of Sarusawa, and needless to say, the dragon’s ascension to
heaven on March third was a black lie. The reason why he made
such needless mischief is that he was displeased with the priests of
Nara, who were habitually making fun of his nose, and he planned
to play a trick on them this time and laugh at them to his heart’s
content. Your Lordship must think it quite ridiculous. But this is
an old story, and in those days people who played such tricks were
by no means uncommon. (105-106)
The story revolves around a practical joke played by the Buddhist monk
called Kurodo Tokugyo with the official title "Former Keeper of His Majesty’s
Storehouse and Master of the Profound Dialogue". He had an extraordinary large
nose. The tip of his nose shone frightfully crimson all the year round, as if it had
been stung by a wasp. So the people of Nara nicknamed him Hanazo. People
joked about his long protruding nose, leading him to focus more on practical
joking than on his religion.
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Hanazo erects a sign next to the Sarusawa Pond reading: “On the third day
of the third month, the dragon of this pond will ascend to heaven.” However,
though Hanazo intended the joke to affect only those in his immediate area, his
sign ends up attracting many from miles around, including many influential lords
and his superstitious aunt. A numberless crowd watches the lake faithfully as
Hanazo both scoffs their ignorance and marvels at the turnout. Eventually, the sky
darkens and everyone gathered, including Hanazo, believe they see a dark
powerful dragon ascending towards the sky. Afterwards, no one will believe
Hanazo’s claim that the sign was a practical joke; even Hanazo, the instigator,
believes a dragon from the pond actually flew towards his home.
Then, in front of the big southern gate of the temple, by chance he
met the priest called Emon, who lived in the same cell as he
himself.
“You are up unusually early today,” Emon said, furrowing his
dark, thick, stubborn brow. “The weather may change.”
“The weather may really change,” Hanazo readily replied with a
knowing look, dilating his nose. “I’m told that a dragon will
ascend to heaven from the Sarusawa Pond on March third.”
Hearing this, Emon glared dubiously at Hanazo. But soon purring
in his throat, he said with a sardonic smile, “You had a good
dream, I suppose. I was once told that to dream of a dragon
ascending to heaven is an auspicious omen.” So saying he tried to
go past Hanazo, tossing his mortar-shaped head. But he must have
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heard Hanazo muttering to himself, “A lost soul is beyond
redemption.” Turning back with such hateful force that the
supports of his hemp-thronged clogs bent for the moment, he
demanded of Hanazo, in a tone as vehement as if he would
challenge him to a Buddhist controversy, “Is there any positive
proof that a dragon will ascend to heaven?” Hanazo replied,
looking down at him, “If you doubt my remark, you ought to see
the notice-board in front of the weeping willow.” (108-109)
The major theme of “The Dragon” is the nature of religion. Akutagawa
convinces everyone, even the man who absolutely knows the information must be
false, that a vague shadowy image was the figure of a dragon ascending to
heaven.
As Rubin Jay puts it: The Dragon toys with the likelihood that religion is
nothing more than mass hysteria, a force so powerful that even the fabricator of
an object of veneration can be taken in by it.
In the meantime, the notice-board message “On March third a
dragon shall ascend from this pond,” came to be more and more
talked about, and Hanazo, elated by this success, chuckled to
himself, and dilated his nose.
The mischief he had done with the intention of playing a trick upon
the people of Nara had brought about the unexpected result of
deceiving tens of thousands of people in many provinces. When he
thought of this, he felt more alarmed than pleased.
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But while on one had he felt uneasy when he learned from hearsay
on the streets that incense had been burnt and flowers offered
before the notice-board, on the other, he felt as happy as if he had
accomplished some great achievement. (111-112)
The story offers numerous allusions to Buddhism, including legends of
dragon ascensions and the calling on the name of the Amida, also known
as Amitābha. Numerous references are given about the actual historic locations
and the places where the story took place, including the Kōfukuji Temple,
Sakurai, Nara Province, The major Shinto shrine Kasuga Shrine, and many other
locations in the Nara area. In addition, the story gives references of the ancient
great annual processions of Kyoto, the then imperial Japanese capital.
It may well be imagined from the preceding account how
miserable Hanazo felt at this sight. But then a strange thing
happened, for Hanazo began to feel in his heart that a dragon was
really likely to ascend – at first, he began to feel that it might not
be impossible for a dragon to ascend. Of course, he was the author
of the notice-board, and he ought not to have entertained any such
absurd idea. But while he was looking at the surging of the
ceremonial headgear, he actually began to feel that some such
alarming event might happen.
This may have been because the excitement of the multitude of
people impressed Hanazo without his being aware of it. Or it may
be that he felt guilty when he thought over the fact that his trick
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caused such great general excitement, and that without being aware
of it, he began to desire in his heart, that a dragon should really
ascend from the pond. (116)
“The Dragon” makes one wonder about the power of suggestion and
belief in wanting the dragon to appear. It is very interesting, and perhaps
unintentionally a psychological study of what a group can convince themselves
to believe.
Nearly half a day had gone by since Hanazo had arrived there.
Then a streak of cloud like the smoke of a joss stick trailed in midair. Suddenly it grew larger and larger, and the sky which had been
bright and clear became dusky. At that moment a gust of wind
swept down over the pond and ruffled the glassy surface of the
water into innumerable wave. Then in the twinkling of an eye,
white rain came down in torrents before the spectators, prepared as
they were, had time to scurry helter-skelter. Furthermore, terrific
claps of thunder suddenly pealed, and flashes of lightning flew past
one another like wefts of a fabric. Then hooked hands seemed to
tear apart a cluster of clouds, and in the excess of their force they
raised a spout of water over the pond. At that instant Hanazo’s
eyes caught a blurred vision of a black dragon more than one
hundred feet long ascending straight into the sky, with its golden
talons flashing. But this happened in a twinkling. After that, amidst
a storm, cherry blossoms around the pond were seen flying up into
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the dusky sky. It hardly need be said that the disconcerted
spectators, as they scurried away, formed waves of humanity
which surged like the waves in the pond.
Eventually the torrential rain stopped and a blue sky began to peep
through the clouds. Then Hanazo stared around him as if he had
forgotten his large nose. Was the figure of the dragon which he had
just seen an illusion? While he wondered, author of the noticeboard as he was, he began to feel that the dragon’s ascension was
impossible. Nevertheless, he did actually see it. So, the more he
thought over the event, the more mysterious it became.
Later Hanazo confessed that the notice-board had been his own
mischievous idea. But I am told none of his fellow-priests, not
even Emon, believed his confession. Now did his notice-board hit
the mark? Or did it miss? Ask Hanazo or Kurodo Tokugyo the Big
Nosed, and probably he himself will be unable to reply to this
question. (118-119)
Akutagawa through his stories offer a moralistic viewpoint, the stories
pose philosophical questions that encourage the reader to ponder the situations
presented and reassess his or her own values. What one gets to learn from the
stories of Akutagawa is that his writing style is never fixed. He could be infant
like, presenting his imagination of innocence with all that is make-belief; he could
write with a passion and fire that become serious and hot tempered; with delicacy,
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touching on the most concerning issues for his nation, for his people and for
himself; and opening his mind to other worlds and stories of hope and resolve.
It tells of a talented author who can show flexibility and a desire to explore
different writing styles and approaches. Akutagawa has thrown away any
pretense of self-indulgence; instead he has provided his tales with subtleties
displaying his great artistic attributes.
Osho says about the ultimate spiritual experience in his book Zen: The
Mystery and Poetry of the Beyond:
To become spiritual you have to go into your own depth, leaving
mind far behind. Let it dream, let it think, you simply watch. And
just watching is the greatest alchemy for transforming your being.
The more you become rooted in watching and witnessing…the
thoughts disappear, the dreams disappear, the mind is miles away
and you are left alone in utter silence, in peace. All the tensions,
anxieties, angst, are completely transformed into bliss, into ecstasy,
into blessings.
This is what Akutagawa did, go into his true self, delve deep into his inner
thoughts and bring forth his experiences in his works, which make us look at him
with sympathy and compassion.
The letter written as a suicide note prior to Akutagawa’s intended death
and later released to the mass media reads like:
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Probably no one who attempts suicide is fully aware of all his
motives, which are usually too complex. At least in my case it is
prompted by a vague sense of anxiety, a vague sense of anxiety
about my own future.
Over the last two years or so I have thought only of death, and with
special interest read a remarkable account of the process of death.
While the author did this in abstract terms, I will be as concrete as
I can, even to the point of sounding inhuman. At this point I am
duty bound to be honest. As for my vague sense of anxiety about
my own future, I think I analyzed it all in A Fool's Life, except for
a social factor, namely the shadow of feudalism cast over my life.
This I omitted purposely, not at all certain that I could really
clarify the social context in which I lived.
Once deciding on suicide (I do not regard it as a sin, as Westerners
do), I worked out the least painful means of carrying it out. Thus I
precluded hanging, shooting, leaping, and other manners of suicide
for aesthetic and practical reasons. Use of a drug seemed to be
perhaps the most satisfactory way. As for place, it had to be my
own house, whatever inconvenience to my surviving family. As a
sort of springboard I, as Kleist and Racine had done, thought of
some company, for instance, a lover or friend, but, having soon
grown confident of myself, I decided to go ahead alone. And the
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last thing I had to weigh was to insure perfect execution without
the knowledge of my family. After several months' preparation I
have at last become certain of its possibility.
We humans, being human animals, do have an animal fear of
death. The so-called vitality is but another name for animal
strength. I myself am one of these human animals. And this animal
strength, it seems, has gradually drained out of my system, judging
by the fact that I am left with little appetite for food and women.
The world I am now in is one of diseased nerves, lucid as ice. Such
voluntary death must give us peace, if not happiness. Now that I
am ready, I find nature more beautiful than ever, paradoxical as
this may sound. I have seen, loved, and understood more than
others. In this at least I have a measure of satisfaction, despite all
the pain I have thus far had to endure.
P.S. Reading a life of Empedocles, I felt how old is this desire to
make a god of oneself. This letter, so far as I am conscious, never
attempts this. On the contrary, I consider myself one of the most
common humans. You may recall those days of twenty years ago
when we discussed "Empedocles on Etna" - under the linden trees.
In those days I was one who wished to make a god of myself.
“Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be
receptive, to have no goal.” says Hermann Hesse in his book Siddhartha.
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Akutagawa through his characters tried to seek the meaning of his life, and
in the end freed himself from this worldly ties, with no goals, only freedom,
maybe freedom from the goal of not being able to seek his true meaning in life.
Akutagawa through his stories and writing inspires the readers to look into
the goodness in a person. This fact hits us when we look at the characters in the
stories of Akutagawa with sympathy, with compassion, as no person is without
fault. The characters portrayed in his stories have their weaknesses and
shortcomings, and only through compassionate feeling can we understand them,
which in turn help us in understanding the people, the society we live in, in a
better way.
Akutagawa says in Rashomon and Other Stories:
A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure
will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no
more than mere spectators of life.