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An Analysis Of In A Grove By Akutagawa Ry Ū Nosuke

Satisfactory Essays

The short story “In a Grove” written by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke was turned into a film called “Rashomon” made in 1950. According to the urban dictionary Rashomon “is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. This simply means when the same event is given inconsistently told by different individuals. Both the short stories and film share similarities and differences that I was not able to comprehend on my first reading. The short story produced background information about the city’s condition, while the film was based on multiple testimonies given before a high police commissioner on the discovery of a samurai’s body in the grove. Nevertheless both of these adaptations are more than stories complied to make a great film. But Rashomon can be seen as the imperfections of humanity as the perspective of who had committed the crime changed on account by each witness. The combining strategies such as the narrative and the cinematic elements contributed to the final elements of the film.

While reading “Rashomon” and “In a Grove” the background information of the Rashomon Gate describes the city, state “over the last two or three years there had been a series of disasters in Kyoto” (Rasomon). This gate had been damaged by whirlwind, fires and famine. A lowly servant appears wearing a navy-blue kimono under the gate waiting for the rain to stop. This was

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