In 1915, during the Taisho period of Japanese history, native Japanese author Ryunosuke Akutagawa created a collection of short stories titled Rashomon and Other Stories. The progenitor of the modern Japanese short story, Akutagawa's collection of allegorical sketches transcends the limits of social, moral, and linguistic constructs and has received praise around the world. By the time it was translated into English in 1952, Rashomon had already amassed a legion of fans around the world, including Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, whose 1950 film integration of the novel's first two stories, "Rashomon" and "In a Grove " is considered one of his finest films. These two stories from Akutagawa's novel are not simply an excellent format for cinematic interpretation, but a mirror through which Akutagawa's literary masterpiece can be interpreted. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay A student of Natsume Soseki, an acclaimed author of psychological novels on par with the Russian masters, Akutagawa delves into the psyche and pathos of medieval Japan, creating a stylistic veneer of simple beauty matched only by the rich underlying social commentary and observations of the dizzying Japan's entry into the industrialized world. Born in Tokyo in 1892, Akutagawa experienced a childhood of loss and misfortune: he lost his mother to mental illness and his father gave him up for adoption to his relatives. These early tragedies cast a shadow over young Akutagawa that haunted and depressed him for the rest of his life. As a comfort to his troubled mind, Akutagawa fell in love with the written word and began studying and writing literature while at Tokyo Imperial University. The first work of the talented young writer was published even before his graduation from the university. After his successful years at Tokyo Imperial University, Akutagawa visited Russia and China and began teaching English and writing haiku, short stories, and novellas. His depression worsened and persisted throughout his life, extending into his work and his dark, powerful portraits of medieval Japan, until his suicide in 1927, at the young age of just 35. His powerful diction and imagery in his painting of Japanese culture is reminiscent of Kafka's dark portrait of Prague or Sinclair's gritty urban America. His simple but touching style, similar to that of contemporary Japanese authors, is a subtle return to French naturalist fiction. Akutagawa expounds the naturalist school of thought and, without the limitations of the science-oriented style of authors such as Honor de Balzac, captures a vision of Japan through a more subjective look at humanity itself. His pastoral recollections of the Japanese peasant subjected to the rule of courtesans offer his readers a personal insight into Japanese culture of times past. By understanding the influence of that era, his readers appreciate the means by which modern Japanese culture came into being. Akutagawa opens his novella with the short story "In A Grove". Written from the perspective of seven different people about a crime allegedly committed by a thief, Tajomaru, the multi-perspective rendering of the tale is an innovative format that has since been duplicated by authors and directors in the East and West. The only hard facts of the story are that a man was found dead in a thicket with a single sword wound to the chest. Akutagawa explores different angles of the story from the point of view of the woodcutter who discovered the body, of a Buddhist priest who met the murdered man shortly before his death, of a policeman who arrested Tajomaru, of the mother of the dead man's wife , Tajomaru himself,of the dead man's wife and, finally, the dead man himself, through a psychic medium. Each character adds different facts to the story, sometimes contradicting the statements of others and sometimes corroborating the accounts of other witnesses. The beauty and simplicity of Akutagawa's style is that he never reveals the true story through an omniscient third-person narrator. Upon a superficial reading of the text, this may seem like an omission on the author's part that leaves readers wanting a resolution to the story, but upon closer examination, this apparent lack of information is actually a method by which Akutagawa makes a very valid point. Akutagawa emphasizes that, as in the real world, in his story there is no ultimate truth of reality, nor a single correct and conclusive answer. Perception is reality, and for each of the characters in the story, their perceptions of the events that took place, and their accounts of them, are their inherent realities. This is not to say, however, that the accounts given by each of the characters are in fact what they truly perceived, or even what they actually believe happened. Akutagawa, without literally discussing medieval Japanese values ​​of samurai honor and shame, offers his readers a deeper insight into those ancient values ​​than could be literally written down on paper. Tajomaru admits in his account that he raped the murdered man's wife while the man watched; tied to the root of the cedar tree and to kill the man himself. However, he claims that he only stabbed his husband because the murdered man's wife urged him to do so. After crossing swords with the man and emerging victorious, Tajomaru turned to find that the woman had fled the grove. The woman's account differs slightly, as she claims that she killed her husband to preserve her honor. After witnessing another man violate his wife, the murdered man could not continue to live by the code of honor of a Japanese warrior. After mercifully stabbing her husband, the woman claims she attempted to take her own life by drowning, but, unable to complete her suicide, she returned to the village to continue living in disgrace. The story of the murdered man is even different. He states that his wife complied with Tajomaru's sexual demands and, after a sexual encounter in front of the tied-up man, agreed to marry Tajomaru, on the condition that Tajomaru kill her husband. There is no honorable way to marry another person while the husband is still alive, so the only solution for the woman would be to murder the man. The murdered man says that Tajomaru refused to kill the man for his own honor and gave him the choice of his wife's fate. As he does so, the man claims that his wife has run away and Tajomaru has also cut his ties and fled. After being betrayed in this way by his wife, the man took his own sword and thrust it into his chest in sacrificial suicide. These deviations in different accounts arise not only from differences in perceptions, but also from differences in how each person would like the story to be remembered, both for their own honor and for the honor of their loved ones. Each character's narrative portrays them in the best possible light given the circumstances. The murdered man would like to be remembered not as someone who was killed after losing a battle against another warrior, but as someone who valiantly took his own life in response to the shame and dishonor brought upon him by his wife. At the same time, he doesn't want to incriminate his wife for any wrongdoing, so even if she doeshad stabbed for honor, he could not report it to the police, as it would make her guilty of his murder. The murdered man's wife, also following the code of honor, would not dare reveal anything if there was indeed a love connection between her and Tajomaru, and yet, at the same time, she would not want her husband to be seen as someone who was hit in battle or killed while tied to a tree. Therefore, she says she did an honorable thing, took her husband's life, and then attempted to take her own. Tajomaru obviously doesn't want to be found guilty of killing that man, and so he wouldn't admit to such a thing. At the same time, if he really had an extramarital affair with the man's wife, he would not want to reveal their infidelity out of respect for the woman he loves. This tangled web of deception and misinformation forces Akutagawa's readers to take a step back from reality. individual narratives and examine the story as a whole and draw your own conclusions about what the true chain of events was. Since no single tale can be trusted more than another, Akutagawa opens up a world of speculation and imagination that could not be conveyed through more conventional means of storytelling. This revolutionary style captured the imagination of countless readers and paved the way for debate about schisms between perception and reality; truth and lies, honor and dishonor. This open-ended story format is now an almost archetypal style, often visible in modern society in commercials and novels; such as Christopher McQuarrie's "The Usual Suspects" and films; like Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). Akutagawa's second story in the Rashomon collection is an eponymous vignette focusing on a large, dilapidated gate in Kyoto, Japan, called Rashomon. Built during Japan's Heian period in 789, when Japan's capital was moved to Heian, now Kyoto, the gate fell into disrepair after the abandonment of Western Kyoto. A series of natural disasters and a steady decline in the workforce have rendered the gate a mere facade of its once-powerful architecture. During this period, Japan continued to refine its cultural heritage and the country became a model of courtly life, always seeking beauty. As courtesans flourished, provincial clans also reached greater levels of power, creating a socioeconomic rift in the country. As courtesans moved further and further away from life outside the palace walls, the quality of life for the proletariat declined. As social classes became more separated, a complete contempt for lower states emerged. The Rashoman, once a proud monument, became a hideout for thieves and murderers. Rats and vermin infested the structure. As the death toll from malnutrition, disease, and various natural disasters increased, the unclaimed bodies of the lower classes were left to rot at the gate. The underlying pattern of the story is the balance between what is right and what is necessary. . Akutagawa's protagonist in "Rashoman" is a servant who was recently fired from his position. He finds himself a man without a master and with few options for his survival. While waiting for a heavy rain to end at the base of Rashoman, the man decides that he only has two options available to him; he can attempt to pursue honest financial means and inevitably face long starvation, ultimately left to rot like so many others at the gate, or he can go rogue and hopefully survive these difficult times through ill-gotten gains. Lost in thought, the man seeks refuge from the storm inside the wall. Afterhaving climbed the stairs to the inner recesses of the wall, he sees a hideous and emaciated old woman, carefully plucking long black hair from the head of one of the multitude of corpses covering the floor of the cavernous room. The servant immediately recoils at the sight of the old woman, and Akutagawa says that if the man had thought about his debate between stealing or living righteously, he would almost certainly have chosen the path of honesty, honor, and inevitable death. He approaches the woman angrily, furious that someone would rob the deceased like that, and asks her why she is desecrating these corpses. Her answer surprises him. She tells him that she collects hair to make a wig and that the seemingly innocent corpse she is looting actually belonged to a local merchant who sold snake meat to the city guards, passing it off as dried fish. The old woman rationalized that what the merchant had done, although deceptive and dishonest, could not be the subject of moral objection, because if she had not deceived the city guards, the merchant would have starved. The old woman would also have starved if she had not stolen her long black hair to make wigs to sell, and so the merchant whose corpse was being desecrated would have found no objection to the old woman's actions. This sense of logic baffles the man at first, then seemingly codifies his choices for him. In what seems like a moment of anger and clarity, he tells the old woman that he must rob her of her possessions so he can then sell them, so as not to face starvation himself. Following the old woman's procession She thought the servant's actions in stealing her clothes were morally blameless, yet there is much more to Akutagawa's story than that. At first it seems that the servant accepts the old woman's survival code of ethics, takes her clothes, and goes off into the night to continue his initial plan of robbery to survive; fortified by his new moral code. Upon closer examination of the text, however, this does not appear to be the situation. Akutagawa uses this story to sardonically point out the differences between the morals and ethics of the Eastern world and the Western world. Western philosophy typically believes that morality derives from divine decree. According to Judeo-Christian philosophy, what is deemed immoral is wrong because a supreme being deems it so, and therefore should not be done out of fear of divine vengeance. Eastern philosophy does not characterize morality in this way. Akutagawa's protagonist is a servant who has been dismissed from his post, a man without a master or supreme being who exercises control over him, much like a follower of Buddhism or Shinto. His actions are responsible to himself and to those on whom his actions cause effects, whether good or bad. In fact, the servant seems to realize that death is a better choice than dishonor, both for him and for the old woman. By taking her clothes and fleeing into the night, the man is not simply choosing to follow his own path, but is actually showing her that her code of ethics is flawed and naive. The old woman will most likely die without clothes or possessions, but if, as a result of the servant's actions, she realizes the error in her imperfect perception of morality before her death, then her death and, above all, the servant's actions, they were not in vain. Akutagawa seems to want to point out that the reward for man's good deeds is not a bigger slice of the Judeo-Christian paradise, but the earthly reciprocity of good deeds, or karma. The story ends with the old witch peering into the darkness at the base of the wall, reflecting on the unknown and unseen before her. Likewise,, 1919.