For Wednesday, read "Rashomon," "In a Bamboo Grove," "The Nose," "Dragon: The Old Potter's Tale," and "Spider Thread"
The Japan group should answer TWO of the following:
Q1: Many of these stories
are about the nature of truth, and how—as in the story, “In a Bamboo Grove”—the
truth can change slightly or dramatically depending upon who is telling the
story. How does this connect to many ideas in The Book of Chuang Tzu?
Why might it agree about the nature of truth and the difference between true
and false, as well as bad and good?
Q2: These stories are also
concerned with outward appearances, with characters sporting large noses, red
noses, ugly pimples, and cracked feet. Why do you think Akutagawa focuses in on
these details, and has characters so obsessed with surface features—their own
or others’?
Q3: In “Dragon: The Old
Potter’s Tale,” the main character, E’in, makes up a lie about a dragon who
will emerge from a pond on the third day of the third month. Eventually, as
everyone starts to believe in this lie, he reflects, “at first, it was more a
feeling that he could not be certain it would not” (35). What does he
mean by this, and why is this different than believing that it would occur?
Q4: Even though these
stories have the timeless atmosphere of fairy tales, why could they not take
place anywhere else but in medieval Japan? What makes these stories—or the
events/situations—of these stories uniquely Japanese or Non-Western? Discuss at
least one story that illustrates this.
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