Misplaced Pages

Rashōmon (short story)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sudachi (talk | contribs) at 05:46, 7 February 2005 (link fix). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 05:46, 7 February 2005 by Sudachi (talk | contribs) (link fix)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

"Rashomon" (羅生門) is a short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke based on tales from the Konjaku Monogatarishu.

The story was published in 1915 in Teikoku Bungaku. Together with In a Grove, it provided the plot material for the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon.

Template:Spoiler

The story recounts the encounter between a fired servant and a poor woman, who is robbing hair from the dead bodies left in the dilapidated Rashomon Gate.

The man, just fired, contemplates whether to starve to death or to steal to survive in the barren times. Hearing a noise upstairs he encounters the woman, is disgusted, wants to kill her but she pleads she robs the bodies to survive. This sways the man from killing her, but also fixes his decision on stealing to survive. He then brutally robs the woman of her kimono.

Stub icon

This literature-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Category: