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Revision as of 11:02, 20 May 2006 by Lemon-s (talk | contribs) (→External links: +ja)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)"Rashōmon" (羅生門) is a short story by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke based on tales from the Konjaku Monogatarishū.
The story was first published in 1915 in Teikoku Bungaku. Despite its name, it provided no plot material at all for the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashōmon, which was based on the Akutagawa story, In a Grove.
The story recounts the encounter between a servant and an old woman in the dilapidated Rashōmon Gate, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes dumped.
The man, recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to become a thief to survive in the barren times. When he goes upstairs to get some sleep, he encounters the woman, who is stealing hair from the dead bodies in the second storey. He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of rightousness even if it meant starvation. He is furious with the woman.
But the old woman tells him that she steals hair to make wigs so she can survive. In addition, the woman whose body she is currently robbing cheated people in her life by selling snake meat and claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it allowed the woman to survive -- and so in turn this entitles her to steal from the dead person, because if she doesn't, she too will starve. The man responds "Then, you won't mind if I strip you of your clothes. If I don't, I too will starve." He then brutally robs the woman of her kimono and disappears into the night.
In later versions of the story, the last line is "Where the servant went to, nobody knows."
External links
- Rashōmon (in Japanese) at Project Gutenberg
- Free copy of the story in English
- Free MP3s of the story, read by a professional Japanese actress (In Japanese)
- Murray, Giles (2003). Breaking into Japanese Literature. Kodansha. ISBN 4770028997. A bilingual book with "In a Grove" & "Rashomon"
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