Summary Of The Novel : The Tale Of Genji

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

There are both concrete and abstract things that make up the character of the ideal Heian man that Genji represents. In the realm of the tangible, Genji is able to play all instruments beautifully, paint with excellence, and compose poetry that is perfect as well as his incomparable beauty (among many other thing)s, and in the realm of the intangible, Genji was charming and smart and emotional. Reference to his excellence in everything is made in almost every chapter. “In fact, if I were to list all the things at which he excelled, I would only succeed in making him sound absurd.” (10). With this particular line Murasaki Shikibu is recognizing that Genji was indeed amazing, but she does not want to make him sound ‘absurd’ by listing all the qualities that become him because the list is inexhaustible. By saying this however she is commenting on the fact that if one were to hear all of which Genji excelled in people would realize the absurdity of Genji as a character.

Cultural structures are often very complex and unique guidelines that vary across the globe. These cultural aspects provide a prominent background into the lives of each society respectfully, as seen often throughout the historic piece of literature, The Tale of Genji. Three crucial aspects depicted in the novel’s progression are the role of women, Buddhism, and the political configuration, each containing positive and negative attributes prevalent in the tale. China was a powerful nation at the time, and during this age, these three societal concepts were important, yet controversial at times. These concepts can all be related directly back to the central character, Genji, along with the other vital people who, not

“The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life” (Zwick). These are the words of Katsumoto, an important samurai warrior. The movie The Last Samurai directed by Edward Zwick is about an American War Captain named Nathan Algren who is hired to train, lead and modernize a group of Japanese soldiers to defeat a rebellion of the country's remaining Samurai in 1876. Algren is captured by the Samurai and soon becomes part of the village he is being held hostage in. There, Algren learns from the Samurai and comes to respect them. He finds that his true warrior is becoming unleashed as he trains to become a Samurai with the very people we once called his

The aesthetic of impermanence plays a large role throughout the story. “Now he had come from of age, he no longer had his father’s permission to get behind her curtains” (Shikibu 26). In this quote it is talking about how Genji could no longer go behind a woman’s curtain without his father's permission. Before, Genji was but a mere child he was allowed to go behind her curtain because he was a innocent but with change in age he was not able longer to go. “Brushing away the tears, the minister talked of old times, of Genji’s father, and all he has said and thought” (Shikibu 238). The minister and Genji are reminiscing on that past now that Genji’s father has died. It shows the change of Genji both emotionally and mentally throughout because he breaks down after hearing stuff his dad so he

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

Lord Takeda Shingen- The Lord of Kai, a ruthless warlord whose ambition is to rule all of Japan.

Genji tries to follow some aspects of Buddhism but others not so much such as monogamy, as he has many affairs in his lifetime. It is believed that all the

he shouted in his heart. This was the first time he had ever realized there could be any sort of freedom as this.” This quote on page 150 is the moment that he comes of age and becomes a man, a new Shinji. All and all, Shinji becomes a man in the

The values, makoto and aware, are also deeply ingrained into The Tale of Genji and are a recurring theme within the work. The men are always searching for women with sincere characteristics, and the women are always chasing after Genji, who is a paragon of sincerity. The value of aware is quite Buddhist in nature and describes the impermanence of all things. This is definitely the most significant religious influence on The Tale of Genji because aware is the abounding theme throughout the tale. Genji is constantly witnessing the impermanence of life. One such example is when he loses his wife, Aoi, to childbirth. She is very sick and fragile after the birth of their son, and Genji is deeply moved by her fragility, “The sight of her lying there, so beautiful yet so thin and weak that she hardly seemed among the living, aroused his love and his keenest sympathy” (Tyler, 179). After Aoi’s death, Genji takes it hard and “life was intolerable to him” (Tyler, 180). The feeling of aware is embodied in Genji’s reaction to Aoi’s sickness and death; moreover, the fragility of life is made clear to him

In order to understand Genji's love, it is critical for us to look back upon his very beginning of love and life, as it originates with Lady Fujitsubo during his childhood and puberty phases. Lady Fujitsubo accompanies Genji within the process of his psychological and physical development as the role of mother and sister; with her perfect talent and appearance plus the natural Oedipus complex, Genji developed a deep adoration toward her. As the very first women Genji had ever loved, Lady Fujitsubo was the one of "eternity". The relationship between them had never approached to a completion, which left Genji with regret and void throughout the rest of his life; ever since that, his life-long goal of love was to love someone that "is" Lady Fujitsubo. Every woman he loved afterward had one or more parts of Lady Fujitsubo involved; the most obvious

Genji Monogatari or The Tale of Genji is a story that was written by Murasaki Shikibu during the Heian period. It is a very well received work of Japanese literature and the first part of the story is written with the main character being Genji, and then continues without him. I have no knowledge of the second half of Genji Monogatari but it is in the first section of this tale the characteristics and traits for ideal men and women of the society within the story can be gathered. The criteria for an ideal man or woman in The Tale of Genji was the importance of the physical attribute of beauty, the background, personality, and education of a woman, and characteristics that the main hero of the story, Genji, possessed.

According to Christopher Reeve, “a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” In today’s culture, the hero is frequently depicted as a knight in shining armor, an image that originates from age-old literature such as the fourteenth-century Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In such literary works, the heroic knight has several virtuosic character traits: friendship, chastity, generosity, courtesy, and piety; however, he must also endure a quest in which his virtues are tested. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, three obstacles challenge the hero Gawain’s morals, including the Green Knight, the seductress, and the threat of death, leading to a further maturity of

In this scenario Shikibu is able to capture reality in such a simple event by retelling a very common occurrence. When one chooses what is right over what one wants. Genji is smart, handsome, talented, and everything and more that a father wants in a child, which makes it obvious as to why the emperor wants him as his heir. The emperor’s first born was the son of Lady Kokiden who was of royal blood, the backing his first son received became an added pressure in that if the emperor chose to make Genji his heir then this decision would not end up looking good by the royal family. The emperor made a choice that has been made by so many, that Shikibu is able to have the emperor relate to many of her readers. With this tiny part of the book she is able to put the lesson of choosing what is right over what is wanted into the collection of lessons that The Tale of Genji holds.

The Tale of Genji is one of the most important stories of ancient Japanese literature. Japanese scholar Sin Ohno said that there is no literature written during the Heian Era which is written in as precise language as The Tale of Genji. The author, Murasaki Shikibu, is a woman. In this tale, we can see the concept towards marriage of women during her period.