Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Year 11
Vina Hing
Year 11
that was more fine than the samurais. The Shogunate was not happy about the
merchants extravagant lifestyle and tried to issue laws such as forbidding them
from wearing silk. Merchants also created entertainment areas for themselves
that more often than not samurais visited them. These areas included theatres,
tea houses and street entertainers which included fortune tellers and story
tellers. This all led to the emergence of first great popular writers and dramatists.
Honour and sacrifice was a common theme used among writers and dramatists
as it made commoners feel like they had something in common with that of the
elites.
In Tokugawa Japan, by the end of the seventeenth century, literacy and learning
were beginning to spread widely. Learning became more accessible to
commoners when its primary location no longer remained in religious
establishments and private academies. Most importantly, commoner children
were now able to gain a basic literacy education.
The Tokugawa Shogunate impacted Japan in a number of ways, politically,
economically and where it probably impacted the most, socially. This period lead
to a transformation in the classes of society, with the rise of merchants who with
their wealth created a culture and lifestyle of extravagance for themselves.
However Samurais (especially those in low rank) who borrowed from the
merchants became at the mercy of them; a factor, which later contributes to the
overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate.