Short Paper #3 Assignment

Short Paper #3: East and West

“Both your religion and my opium come from the hairy ones! It’s ridiculous that you use one to judge another!”

“Please, Mr. Yu! We must take from the foreigners what is good and leave behind what is evil.” (Yang, Saints)

In several of Akutagawa’s stories and both of Yang’s, we see the Non-Western view of the West, a translation that cuts across language and culture. Akutagawa typically employs an unreliable narrator who doesn’t understand the West, and gives us false or biased information to help us ‘see’ the truth. Yang is a little more complex, in that we have to read between the story (or between words and images) to see his portrait of Western culture as it clashes with traditional Chinese society. The question remains, can the East survive its encounter with the West?

Response: for your Third Short Paper, I want you to respond to the question: according to the authors, can Western culture merge harmoniously with the Eastern (like the Yin/Yang dichotomy) or must one destroy the other? In these stories, how does each author weigh in on the inevitable struggle between East and West? Can traditional Eastern beliefs exist in a Christian world? Is there room in Eastern philosophy to accommodate imperialism, capitalism, and even Western racism? Or should the East ultimately reject the basic tenets of the Western world (including Christianity)?

Also, do Akutagawa and Yang (writers who are working almost 100 years apart) share the same beliefs on this issue? Is one more pro-East or pro-West than the other? Does Akutagawa’s identity as a Japanese writer writing in Japanese give him a fundamentally different perspective than Yang who is American writing in English? Consider, too, that both are writing about the past: does that give them the appropriate distance to ‘see’ the Western/Eastern confrontation with greater clarity? Or is one—or both—blinded by their cultural baggage?

Requirements

• 3-4 pages double spaced
• Discuss at least 1 Akutagawa story and at least 1 of Yang’s books, though you can do more.
• QUOTE and discuss passages in your paper—don’t just summarize. Cite quotes according to MLA format or another one you feel comfortable with.
• No outside sources needed unless you feel you need more information. If you use outside sources, you must quote and cite them in your paper and include a Works Cited page.
• DUE Friday, April 8^th by 5pm (hard copy preferred)