Questions

I found it ironic that the year when Rashomon was showed was just five years after the World War II wherein we all know that Japan had played a terrible role. The story revolves around three main characters: the samurai, his wife, and the bandit. They all state different stories about the reason why the samurai died and leaves the watchers and readers not knowing the real truth. At first glance, it seems that there is no relation with Japanese politics but once we look at it deeper, we would see the depiction of Japan’s politics before and during the World War II. There are two ways of interpreting the similarity of Rashomon with Japan’s politics. First Rashomon have depicted the flow of Japan’s politics before World War II which was very individualistic. Second, Rashomon have depicted the main characters showing Japan’s politics and the force which triggered it to become the enemy in that war wherein Japan politics during the war was nationalistic.

First Interpretation
Blame Game
Rashomon depicted the characters all blaming another person because of the crime which happened thus it left the whole story open-ended. It is similar to Japan’s politics because the bureaucrats are like the characters in the story, they just blamed each other rather than fixing the problem. It would be hard to believe that Japan’s bureaucrat would not admit their wrong doings because we see Japan now as having honesty run through its citizens because of groupism. However before the war, bureaucrats did accept their own fault but blamed others for the problem which happened in the society.

The Survivor
Rashomon depicted the characters as selfish individuals. They all seemed to want different things like the bandit wanted the samurai’s wife, the samurai wanted his honor, the wife wanted her freedom, and the woodcutter wanted material things. The similarity in all of this is that they all wanted something for themselves only. It is similar to Japan politics because bureaucrats acted for themselves. It was like Charles’ Darwin’s survival of the fittest wherein people competed for their survival. During the Meiji Period the Western values which entered the country influenced the bureaucrats to compete for their own political survival. They also disregarded the weak and only maintained the strong inside the political sphere which promoted an absolute cruel competition.

Broad Horizon
Despite the two negative things which Rashomon depicted about the politics, there is one good thing which it showed throughout the story. Rashomon depicted an unbiased perception in the story. The bandit was not depicted as the character that really killed the samurai just because of his position in the society and the woman was not depicted as the victim just because of gender. This is similar to Japan’s politics because there is no nepotism in it. People acquire their places in the political seats through their achievements or evident actions rather than family connections. Hearsay does not also work for the politics in Japan because there needs to be evidence for what one has done. Adding on, Rashomon is similar to Japan’s politics because it is open for new ideas and does not close one’s self to new possibilities.




Second interpretation
International Power as the Samurai’s Wife
In the story Rashomon, the wife was depicted as a character who started the problem and confusion. She was so attractive that a glimpse of her led one thing to another which ended up in death and lies. It is similar to international power because it blinds states to do illogical actions just to acquire it. However once a particular state had done everything to attain the power, it would suddenly leave its owner open and vulnerable. International power is deceiving just like the wife in the story because after the whole mess that happened, she would just leave the scene like nothing happened. International power does not also hold guilt for the harmful actions which it had led to do.

First Face of Japan Politics as Tajomaru (bandit)
Tajomaru was a weak character who succumbed to the lair of the wife’s beauty which led him to destroy his character. He is similar to the Japan’s politics when it decided to invade Asian countries as to attain lands, riches, and the most important thing of all, international power. Japan at that time was very much inferior to the West which became a pushing factor for Japan to use its advanced weaponry and strong military to invade countries and develop power in them. Like Tajoromaru, Japan became obsessed with one thing that would satisfy its want which led them to do unjustifiable acts and harm people.

Second Face of Japan Politics as Masayuki Mori (Samurai)
The samurai was a character who greatly loved his wife but weighed his honor more than her. So when he saw that the love of his wife belonged to another man as well, he decided to kill himself rather than having his name tarnished. Masuki is similar to the second face of Japan because the politics led its citizens die for the honor of Japan to acquire its international power. The politics in Japan holds a great amount of loyalty and respect for its country which leads it to do drastic actions such as destroying its own self just for the sake of achieving its goal.

Duel between the Bandit and the Samurai
There is a battle between the inferiority of Japan and the great honor it has for its glory because even though it had destroyed a great number of lives, one side of Japan sees it as a heroic act. There is no doubt from the international community that the act done by Japan during the World War II was to be condemned but for the Japanese, what they did was save the Asian countries from the bad influence of the West. Until now there is a battle because visiting the Yasukuni shrine is still a controversy between the international community and Japan and Japan’s inferiority and honor.

My first and second interpretation’s similarity is this: what wrong did they do? Was it wrong for Japan politics to have bureaucrats that were very competitive? Was it really wrong for Japan to invade the Asian countries? Rashomon is like Japan politics because it leaves us thinking, who really did wrong? It is really up to us to know what is right from wrong...