Emperor Antoku's Grandmother rescuing him from a Dragon, by Yoshitsuya Ichieisai (1860)
Link to image
It seems that every tale in the series by Ozaki has "bad guys" that appear as demons or monsters, rather than relatable beings with feelings or reasons of their own for doing the things they do. For example, in the story My Lord Bag of Rice, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think that the large centipede was a monstrous, metaphorical manifestation of a foreign martial force that the people of Lake Biwa feared. There's no back-story to the centipede, or any elaboration for the root of its actions by attacking the Kingdom on Lake Biwa. Even though these stories are fairy tales, it's definitely within reason to say that the Japanese stories definitely give no aspect of gray-sided morality: there appears to only be a light and dark side.
There is another example in the story of The Ogre of Rashomon: the ogre himself is only guilty of guarding a gate on a road. It's not unreasonable for people to go around the gate, but those who insist on it face his wrath. The bad treatment he receives subsequently from knight Watanabe just doesn't seem proportionate to the very little damage the ogre does by simply guarding his gate. However, the storyteller and knight Watanabe both seem to address the ogre's actions as mortal transgressions, worthy of severing his arm and keeping it as a trophy. As I mentioned before, no such attention is given to the ogre's story: he simply exists in the plot to represent evil. The mere fact that this plays out in the story makes me wonder as a reader if the author is not being very forthcoming with all the facts of the story. It makes me ask questions like: is the ogre's bad character simply bad because the author is not able to see past his/her own assumptions about those who are different from themselves? Overall, the author's bland portrayal of the bad guys in the stories makes me question their factual basis and truth.
Link to unit
No comments:
Post a Comment