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Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
JAPAN's AKUTAGAWA
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Delighted to see you, truly!
Well, of course, this story is a stinging indictment of poverty and the things it can force people to do. The man obviously originally had a "good" character, since he really struggled against the idea of stooping to robbery or thievery which is a different thing in the Japan of earlier centuries.
You would get thieves who are cutpurses, usually young people who could grab and run away quickly. I presume you might have had your usual household robbers, though not sure on that, because wealthier people worth robbing, had servants and guards, so a thief would have needed to get past them.
Then you also had your armed highway robbers who would attack travelers for their money or possessions. From the fact that this man had a sword that he was quite ready to use, I would guess that he was contemplating on becoming the latter.
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Of course honor is a big thing with them, so burying your dead with the proper honors and a grave where your relatives can visit your remains, etc, I think was quite important.
So simply throwing bodies in a heap where the crows can make a meal of them, must be a thing reserved for the truly dishonorable and for the extremely poor who didn't have relatives to bury them.
...and that of course brings us to the lady who is forced, through hunger and poverty, to pick things off of the dead in order to stay alive. I must admit, I can't think of anything more despicable than to actually pull the hair of the dead out in order to make wigs, and this was of course also the male servants' first response - one of shock and disgust.
(This story is pretty intricate under it's deceptively short appearance). What then basically happens, is that the old lady engages with the servant in a dialogue re morals: "Yes what I am doing might seem despicable, but this is what all of us on the "outside" of society is forced to do to stay alive." The old woman is giving him a quick course in "Being Marginalized 101".
She explains that she knew the woman whose hair she was taking, and that that woman would 'understand' because she herself had been forced into doing despicable things just in order to stay alive.
Now, up to this point, the servant had still been "inside" the system. Even though he had just been a lowly servant, he had belonged somewhere, he had had a master caring for him, he was a necessary part of society and accepted there, so he also bought into their system of morals.
We see him making the transition in his mind, then, from being de facto marginalized, but still part of "acceptable" society in his head, to coming to the realization that the world of the old lady is his world now. She has been the facilitator in making him see that once you're on the outside, your ideas of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, simply have to change if you were to survive.
I find this story extremely poignant and thought-provoking. I'm sure different people have their thresholds of what they're prepared to do in order to stay alive, and at what point they'd go:"Hold on, I'd rather starve to death than to cross this line".
I have, for example, in the past, often pondered that plane crash in the mountains where survivors ate the flesh of other passengers in order to survive. I think I'd do that too if they were strangers. But I'd have to be really starving, etc. Also, it's really very different when you're sitting in a cozy warm arm-chair with well-fed tummy to do your philosophizing from, and when you're in a life-death situation where your survival hangs in the balance. I think one's thinking changes.
How do you feel about that - agree, disagree? ..and where would your 'line' be drawn?
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I don't think anyone knows where their line is until they find it. I used to work for the tort unit of a car insurance company looking into auto accidents, and the manager once told me no one knows what the worst looks like (just based on her time dealing with some really horrific auto accidents). I think that's true. No one knows how much they can face down until they do it, and no one knows what it will take to break them until it happens.
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Oh, good, I was hoping you'd push back on at least some of things I proposed. Discussions are always more fruitful that way.
Yes, indeed, I agree with you that the servant was never necessarily "good", and I suppose it is possible to misinterpret my quote marks there, since some of us don't buy in to the Manichean concept of "good and "bad" or "good" and "evil" in the first place.
So let me rephrase that: When the story starts off, the servant is still in the mindset of what the establishment's idea of morality is - he buys into the norms of those who are accepted and powerful in society.
He himself probably never had much power while he was working according to establishment rules, but he now realizes that he can grab power for himself by rejecting those rules and making up his own rules, just as the lady pulling the hair has done.
This also folds into the idea, for me, that each person may have their own rules, and especially in modern society, we have the freedom to align ourselves with those sources of authority (church, law, state, religion (note I place this separately from church), family and national tradition, and personal philosophy. In ye olden days in European society, if you veered too far left of what church and state said you were allowed to do, you might soon have found yourself burnt, drowned or headless.
Really enjoying this chat! I'll come back but Xmas and people are distracting me, sorry about that!
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I found this story surprisingly bitter. So far, I'm finding the whole collection surprisingly bitter, which isn't to say I don't like it, because I do. I think that Traveller, your interpretation as amended in response to Amy's comment hits the nail on the head. At the beginning of the story, the servant is wondering if he has what it takes to live outside of society and morality in order to survive, and he is uncertain. But the drive for someplace dry to sleep pushes him up the stairs among the dead, no matter how horrible. There, his initial response to the woman is "six parts terror and four parts curiosity". But the woman, in her desire to justify her actions, also justifies his actions, and in effect brings her fate down upon her because of her very desire to explain and justify her existence outside of, as you put it, Traveller, 'inside the system'.
In the end, I am left with a bitter, joyless feeling.
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Oh indeed. Thank you so much for commenting. I love the irony that you picked up there. Regarding this specific story, I had thought, and forgot to mention, that surely this guy could have taken up something like being a woodcutter or whatever - he seems to be taking an easy way out?
But being stuck in your one occupation was, I think, one of the downsides of Japanese society in pre-modern eras.
Akutagawa was highly intelligent, but also highly cynical. His mother had gone insane soon after his birth, and the fear that it would happen to him as well, poisoned his life. He became quite paranoid toward the end of his life.
I am remiss for not having posted a little background bio about Akugawata, mea culpa. I can make a thousand excuses, top one being that there seemed no interest on the group in the collection. I guess that doesn't excuse me though. Let me steal from Wikipedia:
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1 March 1892 – 24 July 1927), art name Chōkōdō Shujin, was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He committed suicide at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.
I will post a bit more about that and on the other thread as well when I have time. Which other Akutagawa stories would you like me to make threads for, BJ, Amy?
Hello all... (not sure what the latest non- binary term is... or when it's p.c. to use it!)I read Rashomin late last night, having peeked at its brevity - thinking it a quick "bedtime story"... so much for that! Truth be told, I'm not one prone to ghoulish nightmares but it certainly gave me pause to ponder this morning.
Thank you all for your input, especially since this particular story is so short. I don't have many/any additional insights per se, as I think you've expounded on the morality, causality and rationality of the protagonist's motives quite adequately. My primary observation in closing off is on the author's profound writing skill. His ability to create a juxtaposing of pathos and disdain; curiosity and disgust, fear and intrigue, indicates not only a tremendous repertoire of language usage but an innate knowledge of human emotions that warrant such descriptions.
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Well said, thanks for adding that, Bonitaj! He -is- pretty good.
Amy, I think one can be misled by the apparent brevity and on-the-face simplicity of Akutagawa's stories - he seems to manage to pack a lot into a short space! Another sign of a good writer, in my opinion.
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Useful might also be burial customs and so forth. I think it is mentioned that a lot of catastrophes had hit the country or the city, so a lot of bodies ended up being unclaimed. I myself would actually like to read more of the Samurai, I have tons of books about them, but they're just looking pretty on my shelves, mainly unread.
Who is the translator of the version you read, Amy, is it Jay Rubin?
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Ooh, let me see if I can find that!
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I'm having trouble finding a good summary of available translations. I'm guessing there haven't been very many.
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So, yes, I quickly read it now and I find the Kojima translation much better.
And about the question of morality: (in the Kojima t/lation)
"As the hair came out, fear faded from his heart, and his hatred toward 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 which had occurred to him a little while ago−he would not have hesitated to choose death.
His hatred toward 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. But in his eyes, pulling out the hair of the dead in the Rashoømon on this stormy night was an unpardonable crime.
Of course it never entered his mind that a little while ago he had thought of becoming a thief.
And then it's almost as if the old woman is saying" I am justified to do anything that will keep me alive" and the servant then holds her to it:
"Are you sure?" he asked in a mocking tone, when she finished talking. He took his right hand from his pimple, and, bending forward, seized her by the neck and said sharply: "Then it's right if I rob you. I'd starve if I didn't."
I must say that I much prefer this translation which makes it sad that the bigger collection was t/lated by J. Rubin.
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Traveller wrote: "And then it's almost as if the old woman is saying" I am justified to do anything that will keep me alive" and the servant then holds her to it:"
Ah ha! That's what he thinks he's doing, but ethically speaking, he mangles her argument completely! He isn't at all justified by the argument she actually makes. (That was my thought on first read, anyway. But I'd like to give it a second pass before I say more on that.)
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I'll also see if I can get it separated, but tomorrow, because I feel pretty tired today...
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Well, in this translation, the old woman says:
""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."
I meant that is the argument that the servant was replying to when he said mockingly: " Are you sure?"... "Then it's right if I rob you. I'd starve if I didn't." He's almost verbatim using her own justification.
I've just checked on my translation. Also done by Takashi Kojima. My book order arrived literally two days after you made the online copy suggestion, thanks Traveller. But I digress. I came back to follow up on your most recent comment. In the protagonist's reaction to the hair pulling, to what he perceived as "an unpardonable crime", is there not perhaps some "degree" or hierarchical structure of crimes that are permitted? Although he initially had a reaction that "grew beyond hated, becoming a consuming antipathy against all evil" - it's as if this particular one was the most perilous and unforgivable. Perhaps I'm a little off the mark, but my visceral reaction is that of comparing necrophilia to rape! In this case, which is the more heinous crime? Robbing the dead or leaving the old and vulnerable woman completely naked and exposed? Again this impinges on the greater moral question. Can morality be prudent or is it always an overarching outcome of black or white? These are the questions this short story raised for me....
ps. not to confuse the argument any further but there seems to have been a time delay /overlap... I'm referring here to Traveller's earlier remark closing with the quotation:"of course it never entered his mind that a little while ago he had thought of becoming a thief". Not much changes for me despite additional comments in between.
Thanks
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For reference, here is Rubin's translation of the old woman's argument:
"The guards loved her 'fish' and they bought it for every meal. I don't think she was wrong to do it. She did it to keep from starving to death. She couldn't help it. And I don't think what I'm doing is wrong, either. It's the same thing: I can't help it. If I don't do it, I'll starve to death. This woman knew what it was to do what you have to do. I think she'd understand what I'm doing to her."
So I do think Bonitaj has hit on the right issue. There is a hierarchy of crime. Some things are crimes just because society says so. Other things are crimes because they actively hurt someone. (And here I freely acknowledge that I have no handle yet on where the dead fall in this hierarchy, especially in Heien era Japan, but these dead have already been cast aside with no decent burial, which I can't help but think is probably a greater crime and concern than stolen hairs - society is very much implicated in this tale.) The woman is arguing that the snake seller did the guards no real harm aside from selling them a cheaper cut of food as a more expensive one. (One assumes they were not venomous snakes.) She is arguing that she does no wrong because the dead are dead; the dead woman is not really harmed by the loss of her hair, whereas the woman is starving. But the servant takes the argument to mean 'I am starving, so I may do what I will' and he chooses to beat and rob the old woman. The crimes are not the same, even if the justification sounds the same to him. He becomes a worse person than the woman he despised. (Or rather, reveals himself to be a worse person - again, I don't think his character changes at all during the story; he just finds the courage to be who he really is.)
BUT I also love the irony BJ pointed out, and I do agree that from the servant's view, it's all the same argument leading to the same conclusion, which makes the story turn on a dime. Very nicely done.
Also, the pimple? I'm inclined to read it as a nice disgusting detail pointing the way through the story.
The library is kicking me out, so I'll leave it there for now.
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I think you all have grasped that we're dealing with a completely alien culture here. One would think common sense would guide you as far as morality goes, but as mentioned by one or more of you, one's idea of what IS moral or good or bad, depends very much on what you believe in a religious, traditional and folkloric sense.
On the other thread we had a similar discussion about morality and our different culture's ideas around what "goodness" comprises of, and what it needs to be seen as a bad person.
There are taboos around the dead in many cultures, which was why I mentioned this in an earlier message. In some cultures it is quite okay to eat dead people, but in other it is very important for the dead to be buried as soon as possible in as much of an undisturbed state as possible - two modern religions that decree the latter would be the RC church and certain Jewish traditions. In the RC church, it was believed that a person had to go through a little ritual with a priest before they die, if they were to achieve eternal life in heaven, and if they wanted this much sought-after term in heaven, they also had to receive a "Christian" burial. Also, for a long time generally, Western culture believed that 'defiling' a dead body was evil and a grievous sin. Grave-robbers were seen as among the worst evil people you can find.
A lot of it has to do with what people believe happens in the "afterlife" - on that I can also refer to the ancient Egyptians and their elaborate burial rites. On the other hand, certain Hindus and Vikings again, burned their corpses, also with specific beliefs and rites, of course.
Give me a bit of time and I'm going to quickly try and read up some more about the specific Japanese beliefs of the era.
Oh, and FWIW, I also believe that robbing a live person is worse than robbing a dead one, and the snake cheat doesn't seem that bad, beyond that fish is of course far more nutritious in many respects, and the guards were paying more for what they thought was fish, than they would have paid for snake - so the woman was of course also robbing them. It's like I sell you a set of "silver" cutlery, when it's actually tin cleverly treated to make it look like silver. I convince you it's silver and I get triple the price of what the tin is worth - you wouldn't even have bought the tin - am I not robbing you there?
The servant did treat the woman very badly, (I don't think he beat her up, but he did kick her away after stealing her clothes) but he clearly saw what she was doing as evil.
I like how we collectively keep filling up the tank of insights to this short story. ;) Thank you Amy! Thank you Traveller! Historical context and "lost in translation"comments are vital. You have provided both!
This conversation is fascinating. The issue of translation has been very much on my mind, recently. I'm reading the Rubin, and comparing the passage traveller posted above, it is striking how different the tone is. Just looking at that one paragraph, in the Rubin it is very conversational, whereas the Kojima is quite a bit more "literary" feeling, at least to me. I wonder what the original is like? It is certainly possible that one of the two translations has missed the tone. But of course it is also possible that the Japanese achieves that rare and difficult balance of putting heightened, literary language in the mouths of a character while at the same time maintaining the informality of everyday language, in which case I would imagine that neither translation of that paragraph quite hits the mark. Without reading Japanese, there's no way to know, though! Another complicating factor in terms of interpreting this story is that it is historical fiction, which always leads to a kind of doubled context, and can be particularly hard to pull apart when you're looking at another culture. I've been thinking about this recently because I just read a Theodor Fontane Berlin novel written in the 1880s and set around 1800, and of course the Germany of the 1880s was vastly different from the Germany of the Napoleanic era. But there is just no way for me, as an American in the waning days of 2021, to untangle that difference. When is the Berlin of the 1800s standing in for the Berlin of the 1880s? Would these characters and their surroundings have seemed alien and antiquated to the reader of the 1880s, or like familiar echoes? Is the author actually trying to reconstruct the values of the 1800s, or is he just using that earlier decade as a mirror to discuss the values of the 1880s? And of course, whatever his intention, did he succeed? In what ways did the 1880s bleed into the 1800s? We have to ask these same questions of Rashoman. According to the notes in my edition, the story is based on a 12th-century tale, and is possibly set around the same time, although I have had trouble figuring out what century we are supposed to be in! Would the timing of this story be obvious to an educated Japanese reader? Or is the time of the story supposed to be ambiguous? And then, of course, it was written in 1915. So are we dealing with the values and morality of the 12th century? Or of 1915? Or both? Where should we look for the appropriate cultural context for this story? Would learning about medieval Japan help us understand what Akutagawa is trying to say, or would it only confuse us, because actually Akutagawa is commenting on the 20th century? Like the question of translation, I feel these kinds of questions are almost impossible for an outsider to the culture to even approach, let alone answer.
But then what are we left with? Do we simply take the story on its own terms, self-contained? Try to read it through the lens of our own values? Look for what appears to be universal in it? Or take is as a window into a world we cannot understand, but that is worth looking through nonetheless? But what world are we looking at? What century? What culture, really?
hello BJ . I like how you probe so effectively with rhetorical questions. if it holds out any hope of possible further insights, just found an old book from 1954 entitled UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE MIND by James Clark Moloney. M.D. (psychiatrist) A fair about of history is in the introduction and then various psycho- dynamic views that look fascinating. eg. "Conformity and rage in the Japanese Male."
Obviously all of this information is centuries after Ajutagawa's writing but it may yet provide valuable bits. . I'll see what I can uncover. Wishing you all a Happy New Year, many Good books and the time to read them!
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Indeed, BJ, and certainly, one short event in a country's history can radically change the milieu, like the Russian revolution of 1917, the French Revolution, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960's to 1970's.
I know it probably won't help all that much in understanding Akutagawa's work better, but I've already been motivated to read more re Japanese cultural history to at least be aware of the main movements in it.
And indeed, those two things, time and language, create, like you said, a barrier nigh impossible to fully penetrate, but it is tantalizing to peer through the veil nonetheless. Since Akutagawa did not live in the 12th century, he was obviously forced to look at it through the lens of his own time, and we are constrained, from our positions, not only by language and time but also by culture.
I'm always aware of the fact, when reading works translated from Chinese or Japanese, (especially poetry) that we Westerners not familiar with their pictographic alphabet stand to lose out on the play that many of their writers make between word and symbol. Yet it is still worthwhile trying to get a sense of it. I always feel that glimpses into different cultures are like windows into different worlds.
Thanks for your contribution as well, Bonitaj, as well as everybody else participating in this thread, and a happy, healthy and blessed New Year to all of you! ❤
Happy New Year Bonitaj and Traveller and anyone else still sticking around the thread :)I do want to say that I hope my comments here (and on the In the Grove thread, for that matter) have not given the impression that I think it isn't worthwhile to try to learn about the history and culture of other times and places, and to use that knowledge to further our understanding of literature! I'm an historian professionally, although I don't track my history reading on Goodreads, and in my view there is absolutely nothing more rewarding than reading history and literature alongside each other—each offers insights that the other can't, each compliments the other! And Traveller, I very much appreciate the insights that you always bring to these discussions from your further research into the author's time and place and background! I think reading Japanese cultural history absolutely will help you understand Akutagawa's work much better. And for that matter, nowhere is the impact more dramatic, in my opinion, than at the beginning—the difference between someone in my position, who has read nothing but fiction about Japanese cultural and history, and someone who has read just one or two books, and has begun to see the big themes and outlines and pivot points!
There are just times, and this story was one of those times, for me, when I feel that the gulf that separates us from the past is insurmountable, and all the research in the world just throwing pebbles into a lake—but throw pebbles we must, and throw pebbles we shall!
hello BJ and Traveller, pardon the pun but I have to say -albeit tongue in cheek:"one man's pebble is another man's boulder!" ;)
These ripples are like waves crashing in on my consciousness.
I've so enjoyed the two meagre stories we've covered thusfar that I read "KESA AND MORITO" last night. Do hope we get to comment on that one soon!
Thank you both for your delightful insights!
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BJ, how wonderful that you are a historian - thanks for sharing that with us! I wonder if being one as a profession might spoil one's armchair endeavors a bit, or does it enhance one's readings of history? Pray tell, BJ, I feel pretty envious of you now, I must say...
Thanks so much for sharing your informed insights, especially where it pertains to our literary explorations here on Paths into the Unknown, but you must also tell me anything now that will make me feel a bit less envious - what is your focus area, for example?
BJ, how wonderful that you are a historian - thanks for sharing that with us! I wonder if being one as a profession might spoil one's armchair endeavors a bit, or does it enhance one's readings of history? Pray tell, BJ, I feel pretty envious of you now, I must say...."Well, I can't read history and have it not be work, that's for sure. But then, reading history for work is a pretty lucky position to be in, and I can always pick up something on physics or biology or whatever if I'm looking for the really-dense-but-not-technically-work reading experience!
I specialize in 17th and 18th century North America, and my research is on the colonization of the Hudson River Valley in New York, with an emphasis on the connections between slavery and indigenous dispossession in a multicultural context (Dutch, English, German, Mohican, Munsee, West African, and Angolan mainly).
But I read fiction for fun and don't bring any insight more special than anyone else who brings their own life experience and other reading to the table :)
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You wanna bet! But I have always consoled myself with the idea that field research must surely have it's boring bits. (No, don't inform me, let's leave it at that! 😜)
Your research area, for example, sounds rather sad and uncomfortable. Yes, a lot of history is sadly not fun, much as it is (for me anyway) human nature to want to know more about our past, and therefore very satisfying to find out more about it.
I'm so bad that reading history can be more fun for me than reading fiction, especially if I get to pick and choose the subject, and there lies the rub, I guess.
EDIT: Oh, and just to add to that, I've had this book on Japanese history for a long time, A History of Japan, so I lied a bit when I said our discussion motivated me to read more - I've always been interested in Chinese and Japanese history. In fact, I picked this book up in the middle and immediately recognized the persons under discussion, Nobunaga and Hideoshi, from a doccie I had watched. Interesting to read/view the various sources and see how the focus shifts from source to source.
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For some of the cultural questions, here is an article from Tor that helps contextualize the man's life an body of work; he was living through an enormous cultural shift in Japan:
https://www.tor.com/2009/03/13/the-da...
I also read the general portion Murakami's introduction to Rubin's collection, which I had previously avoided in fear of spoilers. Interestingly (in light of BJ's remark about the tone of the two translations), he has this to say:
The flow of his language is the best feature of Akutagawa's style. Never stagnant, it moves along like a living thing. His choice of words is intuitive, natural -- and beautiful. Thoroughly schooled in his youth in both foreign languages and Chinese literature, he was able to summon up words of classic elegance seemingly out of thin air--expressions that modern-day writers can no longer use--manipulation them at will into arrangements of remarkable grace. This can be seen with special clarity in his early works, particularly the modern-language rewrites he took from Japan's two large and varied collections of medieval folk tales, ... The ease with which he is able through sheer force of sytle, to bring the classic, fantastic world of the medieval tale vividly into the sphere of modern life is truly breathtaking.
So it does seem there is some duality of tone in the original.
Also, here is a bit from The New Yorker looking from the other side: Japan's interest in American literature, as well as some nice quotes from Rubin and Murakami both on translation.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...
Murakami: "While there are undying works, on principle there can be no undying translations."
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Thanks so much for that interesting info, Amy! I want to apologize again for neglecting On Paths- I had really thought that Proust group was dead, and the last thing I expected was for it to rise from the dead again - so that's been eating up all my spare time that I had put aside for this.
Anyway, hmm- I've quickly read that first article which goes on so much about the Kappanese novella, and find myself rather perplexed, because I had thought that his last novella was 'Shifting Gears', contained in the Rashomon and 17 stories collection. (Which is what I got the collection for, but sadly haven't had time to get to yet.
Can you people remember that the protagonist in the Murakami story "With the Beatles" mentioned that story of Akutagawa's? It's the discussion of it in that story that motivated me to want to read the story. (Story within a story - talk about metafiction; how po-mo of Murakami - but then that whole collection was pretty po-mo.)
Got to run - thanks again, Amy!
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Might as well access them from this central point: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
Since there is a lot of Akugawata worth exploring, I thought we may as well keep the threads separate. The titular story, 'Rashomon' is very short, but it has some potential for discussion.
The second story, "In a Grove" is the actual material used for the film 'Rashomon', and has quite a bit of material worth discussing, so I thought that we might do that here : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...