Remember, you don't have to read every last story in this section, but read as many as you can. If one doesn't seem to grab you, try the next one. But be sure to read several so you get enough variety in the stories, since each one gives insight into different aspects of Japanese culture.
Answer TWO of the following:
Q1: Why do you think so many of these ghost stories are about love? We talked about this briefly in class on Wednesday, but it seems to be an unique and even obsessive quality of Japanese ghost stories. Why might love be a somewhat taboo subject for the culture (given what we see in these stories), and why might it also be a "fear" of the culture at large? Related to this, why does love seem to haunt so many people in these stories, notably the samurai in "The Reconciliation" (another story that was filmed for Kwaidan).
Q2: Why do so many of the stories break off before we get a proper conclusion or a sense of what "really happens"? Consider the story "The Corpse Rider," where even the narrator admits, "The conclusion of this story I do not think to be morally satisfying" (78). Why does Hearn write these endings, when he could have easily made them more "morally satisfying"?
Q3: Since the Japanese at this time don't believe in death as a final event or judgement, but merely one of many deaths, how does that change the "fear" of death? What makes the dead scarier (or scarier in a different way) than they would be for us? Or, to ask the question in another way, why might death be much more real for them that it is for us?
Q4: How does the story "In a Cup of Tea" (p.122) compare to the film version we watched in class (the second story from Kwaidan)? Did the story try to explain or give special insight into the characters and events from the story? Or are they both equally mysterious and uncanny?
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