The Rashōmon Effect: An Analysis of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's Short Story In a Grove🎍

    "Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were." -- Marcel Proust, "In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way"

    This blog post is dedicated in memory of the Japanese author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.

    Special thanks to Spanish comic artist Víctor Santos.

Heigo Kobayashi: "A damned web of lies..."

About the Author

    Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, pseudonym Chōkōdō Shujin or Gaki, was a prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity.
    Akutagawa was born on March 1, 1892 in Tokyo. As a boy, he was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious reader. He began his literary career while attending Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo), where he studied English literature from 1913 to 1916.
    In 1915, the publication of Akutagawa's short story Rashōmon led to his introduction to Natsume Sōseki, the outstanding Japanese novelist of the day. With Sōseki's encouragement, Akutagawa began to write a series of stories derived largely from 12th- and 13th-century collections of Japanese tales but retold in the light of modern psychology and in a highly individual style. He ranged wide in his choice of material, drawing inspiration from such disparate sources as China, Japan's 16th-century Christian community in Nagasaki, and European contacts with 19th-century Japan. Many of his stories have a feverish intensity that is well-suited to their often-macabre themes.
    In 1922, he turned toward autobiographical fiction, but Akutagawa's stories of modern life lack the exotic and sometimes lurid glow of the older tales, perhaps accounting for their comparative unpopularity. His last important work, Kappa (1927), although a satiric fable about the titular creature, is written in the mirthless vein of his last period and reflects his depressed state at the time. On July 24, 1927, Akutagawa died by suicide, his death shocking the literary world.
    Today, Akutagawa is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and many of his stories have been made into films. The 1950 Oscar-winning film Rashōmon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is based on Akutagawa's story by that title and another story of his, In a Grove.

Summary of In a Grove

    Seven testimonies are given before the High Police Commissioner of Kyōto surrounding the discovery of a murdered man's body in a grove.
    The first account is that of the woodcutter who discovered the man's body in the woods. When asked to describe the body, the woodcutter says that it wears a Kyōto-style headdress and a blue kimono and has a single fatal sword stroke across the chest. He also says that the trampled leaves around the body showed there had been a violent struggle. There were no swords nearby, and not enough room for a horse-only a piece of rope, a comb, and bloodstained bamboo blades.
    A travelling Buddhist priest delivers the second account. He says that he saw the man, who was accompanied by his wife on horseback, on the road, around noon the day before the murder. The woman was wearing a lilac kimono and the man was carrying a sword, a bow, and a black quiver containing twenty arrows.
    The third person to testify is a hōmen. He has captured a notorious bandit named Tajomaru. Tajomaru was injured when thrown from his horse, and he was carrying a bow and a black quiver containing seventeen arrows, which he suspects were stolen from the victim. Tajomaru was not carrying the dead man's sword, but he believes there is enough evidence to convict him of the murder.
    The fourth testimony is from the victim's mother-in-law. The old woman's daughter is a spirited, fun-loving 19-year-old girl named Masago, married to Takejiro Kanazawa, also known as Takehiko, a 26-year-old samurai from Wakasa. Her daughter, she says, has never been with a man other than Takehiko. She begs the police to find her missing daughter and her testimony trails off as she weeps.
    Next, Tajomaru confesses to killing Takehiko, but not Masago. He says that he saw them on the road and upon first seeing Masago, decided that he must have her. He lured Takehiko into the woods with the promise of buried treasure. He then gagged him with bamboo leaves, tied him to a cedar root and calmly brought Masago back. When she saw her husband tied up, she pulled a dagger from her bosom and tried to stab Tajomaru, but, being a skilled bandit as he is, he dodged her attack and raped her. Originally, he had no intention of killing the man, he claims, but after the rape, Masago begged him to either kill her husband or kill himself-she could not live if two men knew her shame. The survivor would be her new husband. Tajomaru, observing proper duelling etiquette, untied Takehiko so they could have a fair swordfight. During the duel, Masago fled, but Tajomaru did not notice. Tajomaru took the man's sword, bow and quiver, as well as the woman's horse, which was simply grazing quietly. He says that he sold the sword before the hōmen captured him.

The Bandit
Tajomaru: "I always knew I'd hang some day. That's my life. You want to kill me? Go ahead."

    Masago then gives her account. According to her, after the rape, Tajomaru fled. Her husband, who wore a lilac kimono at the time and was still tied down, had an indescribable light in his eyes that made her think that he hated her and found her disgusting after her defilement. She no longer wanted to live, but she said she could not leave him alive as he was. He agreed, or so she believed-he could not say anything because his mouth was still stuffed full of leaves-and she plunged her own dagger into his chest. She then unbound Takehiko, and ran off into the forest, whereupon she attempted to kill herself numerous times, she said, but Kwannon, a bodhisattva goddess, must have kept her alive.

The Wife
Masago: "Even the most compassionate gods would condemn me..."

    The seventh and final account comes from Takehiko through a medium. The spirit says that after the rape, Tajomaru persuaded Masago to become his wife; she assented, but then Tajomaru turned pale and cried that he must kill Takehiko. Tajomaru kicked Masago to the ground, and asked Takehiko if he should kill her. Hearing this, Masago shrieked and fled into the forest. Tajomaru then cut Takehiko's bonds and ran away, saying his fate was next. Takehiko grabbed Masago's forgotten dagger and plunged it into his chest. Soon, his spirit leaves his body and retrieves the dagger from his breast, leaving him to sink down into the darkness of space.

The Samurai
Takejiro Kanazawa: "Who was it? Good question, my Lord."

Themes
• Guilt
    Various confessions offered to the High Police Commissioner arise strictly out of guilt. In fact, Tajomaru, Masago, and Takehiko (through the Medium) each confess out of the perception of their own guilt (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

• Greed
    Greed is the central motivating factor that leads to Takehiko's demise. He takes Masago with him to follow Tajomaru to the grove because of their perceived greed for cheap weapons, but he ends up getting killed (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

Motif
• Kimonos
    The seemingly small detail of confusing the colours of Masago's and Takehiko's kimonos tells the reader a different story about each narrator's trustworthiness and indeed the trustworthiness of the psyche. One can wonder how so many people who have little reason to lie tell such different stories about whether the kimonos were lilac or blue (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

In a Grove in Popular Culture

    Ever since Akira Kurosawa's 1950 filmic adaptation of In a Grove, which borrows its setting from Rashōmon, the popularity of contradictory accounts of a single event has been popular. This concept was coined as the Rashōmon Effect. The term is credited to the film, but the effect is also present in Akutagawa's original short story.

Woodcutter: "I don't understand any of those three."

    First published in an essay on the politics of journalism for Theaterwork Magazine in 1982 by Valerie Alia, this term can be found in fiction as well as in real life. It is a useful term for journalists and lawyers studying the nature of truth and truth-telling in journalism.
    In Karl G. Heider's seminal studies in ethnography, he uses the term to account for the subjectivity of perception on recollection - an idea universal enough to find itself in fields as far away from film as physics and philosophy.
    However, the Rashōmon effect is also popular in films, plays, TV series, other short stories, and graphic novels as well. To name a few: Gone Girl, Talvar, Batman: The Animated Series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Arrested Development, Happy Days, The Simpsons, Star Trek, Tell Me Why, and many others have alluded to the effect.
    In short, any event with multiple parties involved is difficult to summarize because of constant refutations, even in seemingly insignificant details. One may wonder how it could be possible to have such varied accounts of the same incident in which the real evidence cannot even be accounted for (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

VI. References

1. Akutagawa, R. (1952). Rashomon and Other Stories. New York City, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
2. Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015, December 31). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Akutagawa-Ryunosuke
3. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon “In a Grove” Summary and Analysis. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/summary-in-a-grove
4. Kurosawa, A. (Director). (1950). Rashōmon [Film]. Daiei Film.
5. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon Symbols, Allegory and Motifs. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/symbols-allegory-motifs
6. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon: The Rashōmon Effect. Grade Saver. http://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/the-rashmon-effect
7. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon Themes. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/themes
8.  Santos, V. (2012, November 13). Making of Rashomon Cover [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2012/11/blog-post.html
9. Santos, V. (2012, December 28). Rashomon Illustrations (1) [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/ilustraciones-de-rashomon-1-rashomon.html
10. Santos, V. (2013, January 4). Rashomon Illustrations (2) [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/blog-post.html
11. Santos, V. (2017). Rashomon: A Commissioner Heigo Kobayashi Case. Dark Horse Comics.