NOTE: These questions are for the two stories from Kwaidan we watched on Monday-Wednesday, "The Woman of the Snows" and "Hoichi the Earless." Even though we have about 10 minutes left on the last story, you've seen enough to answer these questions for our discussion on Friday.
Answer TWO of
the following for Friday…
Q1: According to
these stories, what relationship do common people have with the spirit world?
What do spirits want with men/women? Is it similar to what we find in The Ramayana, which is also populated by
many demons/spirits?
Q2: Both stories
concern the importance of an oath or of keeping one’s word. Though neither
example is ‘fair’ in modern terms, why do you think this was so important for
the culture? Why would the spirits demand such an impractical oath?
Q3: Though
‘non-Western,’ and specifically, Japanese, do these stories resemble any
Western stories you might be aware of? Are these stories somewhat universal in
their lessons and beliefs? Can we relate…or do they require enough translation
to make them ‘exotic’?
Q4: In the
second story, we also get a glimpse at the afterlife—the spirits of the Emperor
and his soldiers who call on Hoichi, the musician, to play for them. What kind
of ‘hell’ or ‘heaven’ does it envision? Is this anything like what we glimpsed
in The Epic of Gilgamesh? What might
it say about the values and beliefs of this culture?
Q1: The spirit world is plays a huge role in the every day life. The Woman of the Snow seems to be a figment of the mans imagination, but she ends up being real. The spirit world seems to run the show of the humans and men and women within the stories. Like in the Ramayana, the demons can easily be hidden and unrecognizable. The spirits essentially want the men and women to to follow what they want them to do.
ReplyDeleteQ2: The Japanese culture is based highly off of trusting one another and each others word. The high level of trust they have for one another can be lost instantaneously with the breaking of a promise, as seen in the Woman of the Snow, as she turns so quickly on her husband and father of her children. The spirits want to see how far they can make the humans go. Meaning, they want to see if it is humanly possible to keep one little secret to themselves without telling any other person ever. As we know, it is extremely hard not to tell others really juicy secrets.
Q2: I think that keeping your oath is majorly important for this culture because it is a form of honor. From what I understand of the culture, no honor means no job, no family, no business, etc. It is a great thing to have honor and a great thing to keep it.
ReplyDeleteQ3: I cannot think of any 'Western' stories that these 'non-western' stories come close too. However, I do believe that the stories are universal in their lessons and beliefs. To me, it seems like they are both about keeping your word. In the Woman of Snow, the father keeps his word for 10 years. When he finally tells the story, his wife has to leave him. All because he didn't keep his word to her. Although we aren't quite finished with the second, it seems like something bad is going to happen to Hoichi because he did not finish the chant, which he technically promised to do. I believe that we can relate to how important keeping our word is, however our punishments are not as severe.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteQ1: Mankind seems to play a important role with the spirit world. In the stories we have been watching, it seems like the gods or spirits want the humans to do their bidding or to worship them. But what I find interesting the stories are that it seems like the spirits or gods actually need the humans and the humans don't necessarily need them. Like in Ramayana only the humans could defeat Ravana and the spirits come to Hoichi so that he can play for them. Compared to them it seems like we are so little, but it seems like they are always needing our attention. So in a sense the higher beings need us and not the other way around, in this culture.
ReplyDeleteQ4: To me it seems like some kind of purgatory. They don't seem content in the place they are at. If they were happy where they were at, then they wouldn't have to come back to earth and get Hoichi to play for them. In some ways it is similar to Gilgamesh's afterlife. The idea that this life is the most important and all our focus should be on this life, not what happens in the afterlife. But it does differ in the aspect that there is an afterlife of some sort. They do have power, because Hoichi tries to stop the two men from grabbing him away. So they are revered by humans in one form or another. Since we have been looking at these eastern cultures, a lot them say that you have to focus on this life right now. Hinduism says that you have to fulfill your duty in the current life so that you can be free from maya. Gilgamesh tries to save his life, because there seems to be no afterlife in that culture or an afterlife that if full with joy. In Kwaidan the spirits keep coming back to earth and interacts with humans. So it seems like this life is really all we have to look forward to.
Q1: The spirits in these stories want respect from the living. Sprits want living men and women to honor them and remember their legacies after they die, even if it means making them swear onesided oaths. This makes the spirits seem less of ghosts and more of immortals, which makes them somewhat similar to what we see in the Ramayana. The Ghosts and Demons aren’t actually dead, as they seem to be able to interact with the world still, but they are more on a next step in existence, where only some can truly experience them.
ReplyDeleteQ4: I think that the most interesting aspect of this afterlife is that the emperor has aged. He was a young toddler when all of the subjects dove into the sea of blood with him, but when Hoichi plays for them, he is clearly older than an infant. I am not sure what to make of this, because a large amount of the other subjects would have been much, much older if they aged in the afterlife like the emperor. So perhaps you are given the form that you would consider as your prime? At any rate, this seems similar to the immortality we see in Gilgamesh, because they only seem to be able to be remembered, and not actually immortal.
Q1: It seems that the spirit world and the mortal world are very much interwoven. The spirits in these stories are probably the must human-like we've studied thus far, even more so than the Sumerian gods. They seem to be more interested in acting as the living do than displaying themselves as larger-than-life brings. In fact, the spirits in both stories deliberately deceive mortals by pretending to be humans themselves. Perhaps the spirits in this culture spend most of their time trying to re-live the humanity they enjoyed while among the living.
ReplyDeleteQ2: I think the oath is so important in Japanese culture because a person's value is based on how well they keep their word. If one fails to deliver on a promise, it is a sign of disrespect, laziness, dishonor, etc. The spirits might demand these less practical oaths as a way of asserting dominance over the living. Or, since both stories involved an oath of secrecy, the spirits might simply wish to keep their true nature hidden from the world at large, and therefore must demand strict oaths of silence.