Alicia Louise Catibayan

BSE31
October 16, 2009

Ideals of Naturalism in Ryunosuke Akutagawa's "Rashomon"

Naturalism is a literary movement that began roughly in the 19th century. It is

the development of realism where naturalism seeks to imitate a common situation in

everyday life focusing on the darker side of life. The characteristics of naturalism

evident in Ryunosuke Akutagawa's "Rashomon" are: detachment of the observer to

the characters and its keen attention to setting and animal imagery, the exposure of

the brutal side of the characters, their status in the society, and their uncontrollable

will against the indifferent force of nature leading them to their inevitable death.

The detachment of the observer in Akutagawa's "Rashomon" is very

noticeable as the observer left the main character nameless and only introduced him

as a servant of a samurai. All the other characters like the samurai himself and the

old woman were also nameless. The observer simply moved on and gave more

interest in the setting which is the gate called Rashomon and the place where it

stood, Kyoto. The observer then describes Kyoto in the most pessimistic way,

"Kyo¯to had been visited by a series of calamities, earthquakes, whirlwinds, and

fires, and Kyo¯to had been greatly devastated." It only amplifies naturalism in this

text. The observer is sharing the harshness of life as he describes Kyoto and

Rashomon in its worst condition in great detail. The characters also show the same

depressing situations as they choose between death and surviving by being a

criminal. Another characteristic of naturalism is animal imagery. Akutagawa's works

had used plenty of animal imagery. In Rashomon, the observer explained the

characters actions more by using animal imagery. "As quietly as a lizard, the servant

crept up to the top of the steep stairs." and "laying hands on the head of the corpse,
she began to pull out the long hairs one by one, as a monkey kills the lice of her

young." were two of many animal imagery used. The observer also uses nature to

symbolize the fate of the unfortunate servant. "Thus, confined by the rain, he was at

a loss to know where to go." Although he knew the rain would eventually stop, he

would still have nowhere to go. The rain can symbolize his dilemma as it only

continued to pour, as if never ending.

The observer focused on the servant's choices through the unfortunate event

that had turned him into a homeless man. The character was already a servant - a

status where it is in the lower socioeconomic class but still fate had something far

worse to give to the main character. The servant of the samurai had been discharged

because of the rapid declining prosperity of Kyoto. He was now even poorer than

before. It is said that he is confused on where to go next or how to make a living

tomorrow. Until he saw smoke coming out from the roof of the gate, indicating that

someone is there. He had a choice to make, either to steal and survive or starve and

face the inevitable death. Both choices only spell out terrible outcomes. But fate

gave him no other choices. The servant chose to fight for his life and ultimately

chose to steal to survive. Eventually whatever choice the servant had made it still

lead to his unexpected death. He stole from an old woman whom he thought was a

wretched old hag for doing the exact same thing as what he was doing, stealing.

Even though he was stronger than the old woman, there is nothing that he can

escape from the clutches of fate. The observer explained his death, "The yellow

clothes he had wrested off were under his arm, and in a twinkling he had rushed

down the steep stairs into the abyss of night. The thunder of his descending steps

pounded in the hollow tower, and then it was quiet." By only a mere incident did he

knew will end his life.

 Another character in the story was the old woman, or the old hag which the

servant had named her. She was found by the servant pulling a hair of a dead

woman's body. Her character also showed her brutal side as she explained why she

was stealing the hair of the dead woman, "Indeed, making wigs out of the hair of the

dead may seem a great evil to you, but these that are here deserve no better. This

woman, whose beautiful black hair I was pulling, used to sell cut and dried snake

flesh at the guard barracks, saying that it was dried fish. If she hadn't died of the

plague, she'd be selling it now. The guards liked to buy from her, and used to say her

fish was tasty. What she did couldn't be wrong, because if she hadn't, she would

have starved to death. There was no other choice. If she knew I had to do this in

order to live, she probably wouldn't care." The old woman said that she had no

choice. Her life is also controlled by the indifferent universe as her fate had forced

her to either make a wig and live or to starve to death. She also told about the dead

woman's story which had the same situation as the servant and the old lady. The

story only shows that everyone was affected by the economic crisis of Kyoto. To put

it in a naturalistic point of view, every man will always have no fight against their fate.

They will be forever fighting against destiny only to fall into their inevitable deaths.

The servant, the old lady, and even the dead woman can be compared to the

gate, Rashomon. In the story, the gate was described as "the largest gate in Kyoto,

the ancient capital of Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped

with a ridge−pole; its stone−wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was constructed in 789

when the then capital of Japan was transferred to Kyoto. With the decline of West

Kyoto, the gate fell into bad repair, cracking and crumbling in many places." The gate

had been abandoned after the decline of the prosperity of Kyoto, much like the

characters in the story. The Rashomon can also symbolize the whole world for
naturalists. "The gate has become a hide−out for thieves and robbers and a place for

abandoning unclaimed corpses." Much like the world today, with immeasurable

problems such as the economic crisis and natural disasters joining in the trouble.

Humans are forced to make the worst decisions to be able to survive. Man is living in

an indifferent world - a mad world full of filth that influences man and controls man to

his doom. Rashomon was filled with corpses of people who are wicked like the dead

woman. It is also a place where people like the servant and the old lady, are forced

to live there due to the consequences, not of their actions, but to the actions of

destiny and of the universe.