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Analysis Of Ryunosuke Akutagawa 's ' A Bamboo Grove '

Decent Essays

In Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s “In a Bamboo Grove”, the characters’ interviews are inconsistent to even tell who kill the man in the blue kimono. Not only that, the woman’s character seems the strangest out of all of them. From the accounts of the robber, wife, the old woman, and the murdered man, the narratives reinforce traditional gender roles, but at the same time, show deviations from the wife’s role during the characters’ time period. From the wife’s side of the story, her description of herself agrees with how the thief, the murdered man (her husband), and the people of her time saw women: weak and dependent or simply “the damsel in distress”. The old woman, her mother, describes the woman face as “small” with the fact that the woman is already a small nineteen year old (Akutagawa). This paints a picture of a small, innocent-looking girl. So besides being a woman, she is too young, in the people’s eyes, to really defend herself. Even Tajomaru, the robber, “strikes down her small sword” while she is trying to protect her and her husband (Akutagawa). Tajomaru shares his view of women by stating that “The most spirited woman is defenseless without a weapon” (Akutagawa). He automatically knows that he can take her down without much effort. Trying to reach her husband, she runs “stumbingly” to help him while also having “difficulty” getting up after seeing how the husband looked at her (Akutagawa). Understandingly, she may have trouble getting up after being knocked down,

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