Slides on the Rashomon Effect, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Samurai Japan, Modernism, and Akutagawa's short stories "In a Grove" and "Rashomon."

1. The Rashomon Effect
@ccareylit
craigcarey.net

2. “In a Grove”
“Rashomon”
Ryūnosuke
Akutagawa

6. The Rashomon Effect

7. The Rashomon Effect
contradictory interpretations of the same event
by different people.

9. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Japanese modernist
• Active in the Taisho period
• “Father of the Japanese
short story”
• “Akutagawa Prize” is
Japan’s premier literary
award

10. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Stories mix western
and Japanese cultures
• Stories adapt ancient
tales with modern
sensibility

11. Taishō Period
• Refers to the reign of the
Taisho Emperor between
1912 and 1925
• Period of modernization
and Westernization
• Growing representational
government

12. • Period of flourishing
popular culture
• Magazines, music,
and films
• Taisho Modernists
Taishō Period

13. Akutagawa vs. Tanizaki

14. Plot/
Content
Form/
Structure
What the
story is about
How the
story is told

15. Ancient Japan vs. Modern West

16. Heian Period, 794 to 1185

17. Map of Kyoto, Japan (1696)
Map of Kyoto,
Japan (1696)

18. Rashōmon, “city gate”

19. Old Picture of the
Rashōmon Gate
1863

20. • Constructed in 789
• 106 feet wide, 26
feet high, with a
75-foot stone wall
• Fell into disrepair
by 12th century
Rashōmon

22. Samurai Japan

23. S
A
M
U
R
A
I
W
A
R
R
I
O
R

24. SAMURAI: The word literally means “to serve”

25. Samurai code of chivalry:
Kyuba no michi ("The Way of Horse and Bow")

26. Bushidō Code ("Way of the Warrior”):
literally "military scholar road"

27. Samurai Japan = Honor Society

29. Samurai Code:
BUSHIDO
LOYALTY
DEVOTION
OBEDIENCE
FRUGALITY
DUTY
RESPECT
SELF SACRIFICE
HONOR TO THE DEATH

31. – Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1899)
“...Bushidō, then, is the code of moral
principles which the samurai were
required or instructed to observe....
More frequently it is a code unuttered
and unwritten.... It was an organic
growth of decades and centuries of
military career.”

32. Seppuku
• “stomach-cutting”
or “abdomen-
cutting”
• Form of Japanese
ritual suicide by
disembowelment
• Reserved only for
samurai

33. Seppuku
• Elaborate ritual
• Performed in front
of spectators
• tantō - short blade

34. Death poem

35. Jigaki
• Form of female ritual
suicide
• Practiced by wives of
samurai who have
committed seppuku
or brought dishonor

36. A Samurai’s Wife
• She was expected to
cherish her husband’s
honor above all else
• She was to sacrifice all
(including her children)
to protect that honor
• She is veiled and carries
a dagger to prevent
sexual violation

37. “Rashōmon”

38. Mood = Atmosphere

40. Opening Lines to Rashōmon
Evening, and a lowly servant sat beneath the
Rashōmon, waiting for the rain to end.
Under the broad gate there was no one else, just
a single cricket clinging to a huge red pillar from
which the lacquer was peeling here and there.
Situated on a thoroughfare as important as
Suzaku Avenue, the Rashōmon could have been
sheltering at least a few others from the rain –
perhaps a woman in a lacquered reed hat, or a
courtier with a soft black cap. Yet there was no
besides the man.
“

41. This was because Kyoto had been struck by
one calamity after another in recent years –
earthquakes, whirlwinds, fires, famine – leading
to the capital’s extraordinary decline. Old
records tell us that people would smash
Buddhist statues and other devotional gear,
pile the pieces by the roadside with flecks of
paint and gold and silver foil still clinging to
them, and sell them as firewood. With the
whole city in such turmoil, no one bothered to
maintain the Rashōmon. Foxes and badgers
came to live in the dilapidated structure, and
they were soon joined by the thieves.
“

42. Finally, it became the custom to abandon
unclaimed corpses in the upper story of the
gate, which made the neighborhood an eerie
place everyone avoided after the sun went
done.
Crows, on the other hand, flocked here in great
numbers. During the day they would always be
cawing and circling the roof’s high fish-tail
ornaments. And when the sky above the gate
turned red after sunset, the crows stood out
against it like a scattering of sesame seeds.
“

43. They came to the upper chamber of the gate
to peck the flesh of the dead. Today, however,
with the late hour, there were no crows to be
seen. The only sign of them was their white
droppings on the gate’s crumbling steps,
where long weeds sprouted from cracks
between the stones. In his faded blue robe,
the man had settled on the topmost of the
seven steps and, worrying a large pimple that
had formed on his right cheek, fixed his
vacant stare on the falling rain.
“

44. What is crumbling?
What is falling apart?
Decline, Decay, Death

45. “To do something when there was nothing to
be done, he would have to be prepared to
do anything at all. If he hesitated, he would
end up starving to death against an earthen
wall or in the roadside dirt. Then he would
simply be carried back to this gate and
discarded upstairs like a dog. But if he was
ready to do anything at all —
“Rashomon,” pg. 4

46. His thoughts wandered the same path again
and again, always arriving at the same
destination. But no matter how much time
passed, the “if” remained an “if.” Even as he
told himself he was prepared to do anything
at all, he could not find the courage for the
obvious conclusion of that “if”: All I can do is
become a thief.
“Rashomon,” pg. 4-5

47. “The servant had no idea why the crone was
pulling out the dead person’s hair, and thus
could not rationally call the deed either good
or evil. But for him, the very act of plucking
hair from a corpse on this rainy night up here
in the Rashomon was itself an unpardonable
evil. Naturally he no longer recalled that,
only moments before, he himself had been
planning to become a thief.”
“Rashomon,” pg. 7

48. “The servant had no idea why the crone was
pulling out the dead person’s hair, and thus
could not rationally call the deed either good
or evil. But for him, the very act of plucking
hair from a corpse on this rainy night up here
in the Rashomon was itself an unpardonable
evil. Naturally he no longer recalled that,
only moments before, he himself had been
planning to become a thief.”
“Rashomon,” pg. 7

49. In a Bamboo Grove

50. 7 characters, 7 testimonies
Woodcutter
Buddhist Priest
Policeman
Old Woman
High Police Commissioner
Tajomaru
Masago
Takehiko

51. The Facts
• Takehiko is dead
• Tajōmaru raped
Masago
• Tajōmaru stole
Takehiko's bow and
quiver, as well as the
woman's horse

52. Why use multiple perspectives?

53. Woodcutter’s lines: “Yes, sir. Certainly, it was I
who found the body.”
Buddhist Priest: “The time? Certainly, it was
about noon yesterday, sir.”
Policeman: “The man that I arrested? He is a
notorious brigand called Tajomaru.”
Tajomaru: “Where’s she gone? I can’t tell.”
The Reader = The Judge and Jury

54. Parable about perspective and the relativity of truth

55. Modernist
Experimental
Expressionist
Kaleidoscopic
Fragmented
Disorienting
Non-linear

56. Modernist Art
Edvard Munch,
The Scream,
1893

57. Marcel Duchamp,
Nude Descending a
Staircase, 1912

58. Georges Braque,
Violin and
Candlestick,
1910

59. Pablo Picasso,
Seated Nude,
1909-10

60. Robert Delauney,
Simultaneous
Windows on the
City, 1912

61. It is a narrow mind which
cannot look at a subject from
various points of view.
- George Eliot
“

62. “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

63. The problem of…
Knowledge
Truth
Guilt
Judgment

64. Motive and
Motivation

65. Characters and Codes

66. In this assignment, you will choose
one of the three main characters
(Tajomaru, Takehiko, or Masago)
and make an argument about their
testimony.
Writing Assignment #3

67. • What motivates a character’s testimony?
• How can a character’s fears, anxieties, or
fantasies influence their perception?
• How does gender contribute to a
character’s point of view?
• How do social codes and ideals influence
a character’s actions?
Questions to Consider

68. Shame
Honor

69. “I was about to run away from the grove,
leaving the woman behind in tears, when
she frantically clung to my arm. In broken
fragments of words, she asked that either
her husband or I die. She said it was more
trying than death to have her shame known
to two men. She gasped out that she
wanted to be the wife of whichever
survived. Then a furious desire to kill him
seized me. (Gloomy excitement.)”
Tajomaru’s Confession

70. “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 lighting.”
Tajomaru’s Confession

71. “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 stuck by the look in his
eyes than by the blow of the thief, I called out
in spite of myself and fell unconscious. ”
Masago’s Confession

72. Beneath the cold contempt in his eyes, there
was hatred. Shame, grief, and anger . . . I don't
know how to express my heart at that time.
Reeling to my feet, I went up to my husband.
"Takehiko," I said to him, "since things have
come to this pass, I cannot live with you. I'm
determined to die . . . but you must die, too.
You saw my shame. I can't leave you alive as
you are."
Masago’s Confession

73. The Gaze
Desire
and
Fantasy

74. “Yesterday a little past noon I met that
couple. Just then a puff of wind blew, and
raised her hanging scarf, so that I caught a
glimpse of her face. Instantly it was again
covered from my view. That may have been
one reason; she looked like a Bodhisattva.
At that moment I made up my mind to
capture her even if I had to kill her man.”
Tajomaru’s Confession

75. “Then someone crept up to me. I tried to
see who it was. But darkness had already
been gathering round 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.”
Takehiko’s Confession
Final lines of the story

76. Honor
Shame
Desire
Humiliation

78. "Woodcutter," by Kristen Everberg. 2012

79. "Samurai," by Kristen Everberg. 2012

80. "Wife," by Kristen Everberg. 2012

81. Dark
Light

82. • “In his faded blue robe, the man had settled on
the topmost of the seven steps and, worrying a
large pimple that had formed on his right cheek,
fixed his vacant stare on the falling rain.”
• “Firelight from above cast a dim glow on the
man’s right cheek – a cheek inflamed with a pus-
filled pimple amid the hairs of a short beard.”
• “festering pimple on his cheek”
The Pimple in “Rashomon”

83. This slideshow by Craig Carey is licensed under a Creative Commons
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