So why does the Samurai portray his wife as such an evil betrayer?

1) “It suited his ironic taste to play the illusionist who leaves his audience staring blankly into a mirror” (11). Or 2) What he did was to question the values of his society, dramatize the complexities of human psychology, and study, with a Zen taste for paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality” (13). D) In Your “Works Cited” Page: ignore this Here’s analysis for your consideration. When we analyzed “In a Grove,” it became clear that at least one theme involved the idea of truth and lies and the somewhat disheartening and cynical theme that truth is an illusion because everyone (at least in that story) distorts it for their own selfish reasons. Masago, the wife, is confessing at a Buddhist Temple. Who lives in such a place? Buddhist monks, so most likely there will be no negative consequences for her confession. She seems to be seeking sympathy and shelter. She portrays herself as the victim of both men, but says her husband’s hatred was even worse than the abuse by the bandit. She says that she decides to do the honorable thing and commit suicide to make amends for her shame, and she also says that her husband wanted her to kill him, even though he couldn’t speak with his mouth full of leaves, so her killing him was not murder but more of an assisted suicide. Unfortunately, she says that she was too weak to actually kill herself, although she tried many times. What answer does she want to her open-ended question, which she repeats, “Whatever can I do…?” She’s probably hoping that the monks will pity her and will tell her that she can stay at the Temple and devote herself to a spiritual life. In that strict society, where even a victim should commit suicide, the temple is most likely the only place where she could live a peaceful life and be treated with respect. By the way, she portrays her husband as emotionally abusive because he looked at her with hatred when, in fact, she was the victim not only of the bandit but also of her husband’s greed and stupidity. So why does the Samurai portray his wife as such an evil betrayer? Well, by pardoning the bandit, who also felt that the wife was so evil that he was willing to execute her, the samurai leaves his wife as the only sinner. In other words, the two men were ok, but the woman was probably the worst human ever, or so the husband suggests. He might be doing this to take attention away from his own failure to protect them on their journey. In his story, he paints himself as the victim of a betraying wife, and he seems to say that he committed suicide from the sorrowful shame of having such an awful wife, rather than from the shame of being tricked and overpowered by a cunning bandit. Again, it’s all her fault, that murderous and evil wife, he seems to say. Furthermore, he contrasts her treacherous betrayal with his honorable act of suicide. So, basically, he says no one else killed me, I killed myself and honorably at that. Who was that someone who pulled the blade out of his chest? Probably that lying woodcutter who saw a valuable sword and whose greed overcame any moral reluctance to pull it out of a dying man’s chest. Cha-ching! So if the subject of the story is truth, because that is what a reader will instinctively search for in a murder mystery, then the theme seems to paradoxically suggest that the only truth in this story of testimonies is that there is no truth in this story. And that’s the truth. Why? because, as the story suggests, everyone distorts the truth for their own selfish needs. Seen any examples of this in contemporary life lately? When we consider Howard Hibbett’s quote about Akutagawa’s liking to leave his audience “staring blankly into a mirror,” we have to ask ourselves, do we do this? Do we bend the truth to make ourselves look better or to gain some advantage? Do we lie even to ourselves? THE ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER MOTIVES FOR FALSELY CONFESSING / TESTIFYING. Hi Everyone, I will be reviewing everyone’s writing on character motivations for falsely testifying and will award points based on whatever appears to be honest effort. However, let’s consider the following possibilities that have been derived by imagining what possible gains the characters might be seeking. 1) The woodcutter could be lying about not finding a sword. Why? Because a sword has value and could be sold. The rope and comb that he did admit to finding have no value. 2) The Buddhist Priest might be lying about taking little notice of the woman. In fact, he had to look at her from head to toe to guess her height. Why would he lie? Buddhist priests are supposed to be free from all desires, so he doesn’t want anyone to think that he found her physically desirable. 3) The old woman might be lying about being sure that her daughter has “never known” any man except for her husband. She would say this even if it weren’t true to protect the family honor and the honor of her daughter. 4) The policeman might be lying about saying he “almost caught” Tajomaru days earlier. This lie would make him look like a great and brave policeman hot on the bandit’s trail. However, when he actually arrested Tajomaru, the bandit was incapacitated and moaning on the bridge. Anyone could have arrested him in this helpless condition. The great Japanese film of 1951, “Rashomon,” shows the policeman terrified of Tajomaru even when he found him lying helpless, reinforcing the idea that in reality this policeman probably would never have approached a healthy Tajomaru, despite his claim that he “almost caught” him once before. 5) Tajomaru is known for raping and killing defenseless women and girls. We know this from the policeman’s testimony of common knowledge about the bandit. However, Tajomaru describes himself quite differently in his confession. Although admittedly a bandit and rapist, he portrays himself as clever, fearless, confident, fair, skilled, attractive, and romantic. He says he fought for love — “not lust as you may think” — and that he wanted to make Masago his wife. He says that he did not want to be unfair, so he gave the man a sword. So why say these things if they were not true? The answer is to improve his reputation. The next question might be why confess if, as a result of his confession, he would be executed for murder? And the answer is that he was going to be executed anyway for his previous crimes, so he has nothing to lose, but a legendary reputation to gain. Also, read the first few lines of his confession carefully and you will see that he was going to be tortured to make him confess, so he started talking quickly and most likely created a great fiction with himself as the anti-hero star. So we still have two more character confessions to analyze, but what do we look for when we first come across this little story — I suggest that we try to find the truth, and that “truth” is the subject of the story. So what is the theme? Well, whatever the story is saying about truth is the theme. So what exactly does the story suggest about truth?