A Common Theme Among Japanese Folklore

The Samurai’s Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard is about a boy named Taro, the protagonist in the story. The major characters in the story are Taro, Yoshitoki, Lord Takeda Katsuyori, Lord Akiyama Nobutomo, and Togan. The setting of the story is in Japan, in around the 16th century. In the beginning of the story he was presented as a gift by the great Lord Takeda Shingen to Lord Akiyama after his parents had been killed. By using his wits and suppressing his fierce pride, Taro slowly escalates the ranks of his lord’s household until he achieves his greatest goal—becoming a samurai like his father and Lord Akiyama, whom he has come to admire. The life of a samurai is not so easy, Taro finds himself sacrificing opportunities of love and friendship

Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s play, The Love Suicides at Amijima explores the disgrace of Jihei and Koharu’s misbegotten romance, the underlying conflict of the hidden innuendos aimed at the Japanese social class and the sense of duty formed between two women from unseemmingly different backgrounds. In order to fully understand these themes, on must take into account the societal structure of Osaka, Japan in the 1720s. Within this culture, every individual was instilled the notion of familial obligation and had to adhere to the rules placed upon them by society. Chikamatsu Monzaemon does an ideal job of capturing these concepts within the play.

Death is inevitable part of human experience, which is often associated with fear of unknown, separation, and spiritual connection. Death is an individual experience, which is based on unique perceptions and beliefs. Fear of death and dying seems to be a universal phenomenon, which is closely associated with apprehension and uneasiness. Death is allied with permanent loss, thus personal experiences of grief are similar in many different cultures. There are different mourning ceremonies, traditions, and behaviors to express grief, but the concept of permanent loss remains unchanged in cross cultural setting. With this paper I will identify cross-cultural perspectives on death and dying, and will analyze

The Samurai’s Tale is about a young boy named Taro, who had became the hero of the story. The main characters in the story was Lord Akiyama, Lord Takeda Shingen, and Togan. This story took place in Japan around the 16th century. The story began with Taro, Murakami Harutomo, arguing with his mother about what she had been telling him to wear for an event that was going to happen without him knowing about. Later that day Taro saw that soldiers came attacking his house, his mother leaving him with Yone in a chest trying to keep them safe in a storehouse that had laid behind the house. A soldier then found them both and took them out of the chest, then as they walked out of the store hold, he found his mother on the ground dead. A plot twist that

We are quick to cry racism whenever anther culture is portrayed in a different light in Hollywood. We have become so accustomed to what we portray is normal, and The last Samurai was no exemption to this rule. Japan has been given a less than desirable portrayal in hollywood since the end of WW2. The culture and ideas that were once prevalent in Japan have become the staple way of depicting this culturally diverse nation. The directors use of traditional Japanese imagery and themes (such as the Samurai and the Chonmage hairstyle that Samurai wore) further highlights the stereotypes Hollywood has created, and uses them to connect with western audiences.

Many Asian Americans were painted as evil villains or downright dangerous in the early 20th century (1900-1940s). Often they were stereotyped as "inscrutable" and often speaking in the broken English. During early 1900's, there were abudance of vicious images of Japanese being shown as forward and buck-toothed popped up in the media. The infamous journalist, Wallace Irwin, made mockery out of Japanese by publishing "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy". He produced various of anti-Japanese stereotypes such as switching letters "L" with "R" and continuing mocking them with broken English speech "Engrish". The White leaders spoke against the Japanese Americans regarding their alleged immorality, even they liken them to the ape-like imagery just like

In the novel Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki uses his character Sensei to represent how guilt can weigh too heavily on a person. Throughout the story, Sensei's interactions with the Narrator, both verbal and nonverbal occurrences, showcase how guilt leads to other negative emotional experiences, such as loneliness and misery. Sensei's internal struggle with guilt shapes the entirety of his adult life and the unfolding of the events in the book. This paper aims to show the implications that Sensei’s guilt has upon his life, especially his relationships with others.

The reality that someone has been removed eternally from your lifetime is a large, unwieldy fact to come to terms with. However, the funeral provides a psychological point of closure so that healing may begin. As stated by Selected Funeral Homes, “…a loved one's death is much more of a process-requiring hours, days, and even weeks to fully believe the reality. Because this realization of death is not instantaneous, funeral rituals help people gradually accept that their loved one has made the transition from here to there.” This is an important point to ponder and internally understand in a world of instant gratification and resets. Often seen in the American pop culture of film, TV, and video game violence are the numerous deaths and gruesome ends that characters meet. It is all too easy to focus on the hero’s triumph, or hit the reset button one more time. It is a world of quick reward and feedback, and if that has not been achieved, you do it again until you are satisfied. It is critical to realize that there is a permanent “game over” for people and things in the real world in order to re-shift focus on coming together as a society to create and celebrate a shared piece of

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

Acknowledging the existence of ghosts or spirits leads one to ask why they are here. Here are several answers. One reason is that the spirit does not realize, or refuses to believe, that it has died. This can often be the case, but not always. If one suffers a sudden or unexpected death, in disbelief, they may not pass on to whatever destination. Denial or unawareness may be the key to someone remaining behind. They will continue to go about their daily lives as though nothing happened. There are documented cases of this instance. Take for example; a mother dies unexpectedly, obviously she'd want to be home with her family. Soon, the family begins to notice strange

For thousands of centuries, Japanese artists had been breaking the boundaries with their relentless creations of shocking pieces that made people question if there was a life after death. The popular subject of restless spirits or dark beings drove many artists from the Heian Period to modern-day times to express their stylistic techniques and narrative stories through woodblock printing and other alternative forms of art. Unlike most Western art, Japan’s disturbing representations of decaying bodies and death did not promote unrealistic, commercial expectations of death that commonly exists in art today. While handling such abstract ideas of the afterlife alongside the uncensored authenticity of death, each piece arouses fear and empathy for

In all throughout time, different cultures have approached beliefs surrounding death in a range of manners by honoring the deceased and celebrating life. As explained by Durkheim, these rituals strengthen the social ties and reinforce the social structure of a group by calling forth feelings of togetherness and social solidarity. The dead works as a negotiator or a reaffirmation of the values and ideologies popular in perspective societies. On the other side of the spectrum, the body of the dead doesn`t have much influence at all in Tibet.

In the essentially dual religious system in Japan, ideologies and traditions play a heavy role in the everyday life of the Japanese people. Shintoism and Buddhism intertwine and complement themselves in Japanese culture, despite Buddhism coming in from mainland Asia. A particularly powerful idea from Buddhism is mono no aware, the realization and acknowledgment of the impermanence and its place in the world. This idea that nothing stays the same forever manifests itself heavily in Japanese literature, whether in personal writings or fictional works. Despite spanning hundreds of years, each work was shaped by and include manifestations of mono no aware. I intend to underline and pinpoint instances that mono no aware is influencing these works, and discuss similarities and differences between them. In this paper, I have three works that I will explore, each one corresponding to a different time period before the pre-industrial revolution; The Diary of Lady Murasaki comes from the classical period, Essays in Idleness from the medieval, and the immensely popular play Chushingura from the pre-modern era.

In Asian culture, people usually give priority to the religion. Shinto was the state religion of Japan in the past. Shinto means Kami Way in Japanese. Kami is term to describe sacred spirits, or something that possesses superior power (Earheart 6). Japanese people believe that there are spirits in everything. All beings can be called Kami such as river, woods, or even human beings (Ono and Woodard 6). Japan has been called a land of Kami. They regard Kami as an object of worship in Shinto religion. Throughout the film, it can be seen that many elements of Shinto aspect is subtly embed. Just the name of this movie “Spirited Away” tells a lot about the beliefs of Japanese toward the supernatural

  Cultures all over the world have different convictions surrounding the final, inevitable end for all humans - death. In the United States, and in most Westernized cultures we tend to view death as something that can be avoided through the use of medicine, artificial respiration machines, and the like. To us, death is not a simple passing, and usually, we do not accept it as a normal part of life. Death, to Westernized folk, is not celebrated, but is rather something to be feared, something that haunts us all in the back of our minds. However, this mentality is not held through all cultures -- in Mishima's The Sailor, a Japanese novel steeped