1. Ryohei Kimura
Senior Seminar
Subjective Truth and Lies
The film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is constructed by the
testimony of five characters, a woodcutter, a priest, a fallen soldier named Tajomaru, a
lady, and a samurai who show up as a revengeful ghost, who encountered the incident
of murder in the woods. The greatest conflict of this movie is that each character’s
testimony, especially Tajomaru, the lady, and the murdered Samrurai’s ones do not
match with each other. In this film, two theories can be suggested as possibilities to fit
with the idea of film. The first thesis by Roger Ebert is that we should always be critical
of what we are thinking because reality is subjective and truth is relative which is based
on human interpretation. The second thesis by Errol Morris is that truth and reality are
independent of people ergo and they are both absolute and objective. The conflicting
accounts of characters shows that Ebert’s theory of subjectivity of reality and relativity
of truth best fits with the film, although Morris’s theory can describe that there is a clear
truth of the crime. Also, the reason why people lie will be investigated throughout this
essay.
The testimony of the Tajomaru, the fallen soldier, shows the pride of murdering
the samurai and taking over the lady even though it consists of subjective truth and lies.
At the courtyard, Tajomaru keeps proposing how he takes over the lady and killed the
samurai, making fun of the one witness who arrested Tajomaru. Moreover, he seems he
does not regret of his crime and seems even proud of what he has committed. From his
perspective, what he has done deserves to be proud and honored. However, from the

2. woodcutter’s afterward testimony, this story is revealed to be a lie and his commitment
is not honored as much as what he has been telling. Thus, it can be considered that he
lies in order to protect his honor and pride of his name, Tajomaru.
The lady’s testimony also consists of lies and subjective truth that the one who
kills the samurai is her, not Tajomaru. According to her testimony, after being taken
over by the Tajomaru, she is scared of the samurai’s cold eyes staring at her, being tied
and saying nothing. Hence, the lady picks up her dagger and stabbed him. On the
courtyard, she seems very regretful and sad. However, from the woodcutter’s afterward
testimony, she is not the one who kills the samurai. Instead, she acts arrogant and tells
Tajomaru and the samurai to duel against each other. In this period of time in Japan, it is
considered to be a shame to act arrogant before men. Thu, it seems that the lady lies to
keep her dignity as a woman and not to be shameful.
The last contradicting testimony of the dead samurai, who possesses the lady,
has a subjective truth and lies as well as the other’s testimonies. According to the
samurai, the lady is totally convinced by Tajomaru to be his wife. Then, the lady asks
Tajomaru to kill the samurai since she will not be able to live with him if the samurai is
still alive. However, Tajomaru do not kill him and the lady runs away from him after
Tajomaru released the samurai. The samurai takes the dagger and commits suicide after
Tajomaru leaves. Nevertheless, similarly to two other people, this testimony totally is
subjective and the samurai’s lie. According to the woodcutter’s afterward testimony, the
lady asks them to have a duel with each other. Like Tajomaru, the samurai does not get
used to fight and the way he fights and is killed is not very honored. Thus, instead of
being killed dishonored, he chooses to tell that he has committed suicide because

3. suicide is considered to be an honored way of ending one’s life in Japan at this period of
time.
Overall, the movie supports Ebert’s theory of subjectivity of reality and
relativity of truth and it is revealed that those three people, Tajomaru, the lady, and the
samurai, lie in order to protect their honor, pride and dignity. In Japanese culture,
especially at the period when the movie takes place, People’s identities or how they are
looked by other people is very important. Thus, if their dignity or honor is to be lost,
they usually put great efforts on preventing their honor to be diminished. Thus, it is very
important to have subjective truth to give others some alternate ways on interpretation
of what really happened.