ACIERTO, Lianne Margot M.

R61

150042

LIT13
In A Grove Guide Activity

I.

Eyewitness Testimonies
A. Woodcutter: He was the first to find Takehikos corpse 150 meters off the Yamashina
stage road. The body was lying supine and Takehiko was in a bluish silk kimono and
a Kyoto style headdress. He says he was not able to find a murder weapon, though he
did find a rope and a comb. There was no horse at where the body was because the
place was too hard to enter for a man, let alone a horse.
B. Travelling Buddhist Priest: He saw Takehiko and Masago at noon the day before.
They were heading to Sekiyama. He observed that Masago, on horseback, was
wearing a scarf that covered her face, a lilac-colored suit and stood at about four feet
and five inches, despite saying he paid little attention to her. Takehiko, he claimed,
was armed with a sword and bow and arrows, around 20 arrows. This leaves the
question of where did the sword go if the Woodcutter didnt see any? Where did this
horse go?
C. Policeman: He arrested Tajomaru, the murders main suspect. He caught him when he
fell off his horse at Awataguchi in the early hours of the night before. He also recalled
trying to arrest Tajomaru, who escaped. Tajomaru was apparently wearing a dark blue
silk kimono and yielded a large plain sword. He also carried seventeen arrows with
hawk feathers. He found the horse grazing by the roadside. He also mentions
Tajomarus notorious history in the Kyoto area. As the Woodcutter said a horse could
not possibly enter the bodys location, the Policemans testimony conflicts with it.

D. Old Woman: She claims to be the mother of the dead mans wife, Masago. She insists
he does not come from Kyoto as he was a samurai in the town of Kokufu in Wakasa.
He was supposedly of gentle disposition. He was 26, and Masago, was 19. She says
Masago is a spirited, fun-loving girl with a small, oval, dark-complected face with a
mole at the corner of her left eye. She adds that, the day before, the husband and
wife were heading off to Wakasa, conflicting with the Travelling Buddhist Priests
statement that the two were going to Sekiyama. This also makes the Kyoto style
headdress the corpse was wearing more questionable as he was not from there.
E. Tajomaru: He killed the Takehiko, but he doesnt know where Masago is. The day
before, he saw the couple, and when the wind blew, he caught a glimpse of Masagos
face, looking like Bodhisattva (a Buddhist reference, making the Buddhists
testimony a bit questionable), and decided he shall capture her even if he had to kill
her husband. It wasnt his true intention to kill, however. He lured the couple into the
mountains, in guise of a traveling companion. And in contrast to the Old Womans
testimony, in Tajomarus, Takehiko is rather greedy. He tied Takehiko to the root of a
cedar and prevented him from yelling by gagging him with bamboo leaves. Seeing
her husband tied up, Masago took out a small sword and kept slashing Tajomaru, so
Tajomaru struck her small sword weaponless. He claims she asked that either her
husband or Tajomaru dies, which results to Tajomaru killing Takehiko in a
swordfight. As they finish and Takehiko dies, Tajomaru turns and is unable to find
Masago.
F. Woman Who Has Come to the Shimizu Temple: She, Masago, was the wife of
Takehiko. She was raped by Tajomaru in his blue silk kimono (can be confused with
the Policemans testimony). She says she killed Takehiko with a small sword through

his lilac-colored kimono (a conflicting detail with the Woodcutters testimony) and
into his breast.
G. Murdered Man: He confirms his wife was indeed violated, and that she even agreed
to go with Tajomaru. About to leave him, the wife suddenly demaned that Tajomaru
kills him. She ran away, and Tajomaru only robbed him of his weapons and left.
Seeing the small sword his wife had probably dropped, he killed himself with it, but
there was somebody who took the sword off his chest, speeding up his inevitable
death.
II. Point of View
In the story, In A Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, we are only sure of a few truths.
There was a man who was killed. He had a wife. They were planning to go somewhere, but
they were lured to the mountain and into a grove by Tajomoaru where he dies induced by a
stab through the breast. We do not know who did it for sure. We do not know how it truly
happened. We only know these things, and the worse part is that we would not know more
(unless we decide to watch the movie and forego all the confusion provided by the story).
The story showed multiple point of views about one event, yet with varied, conflicting
details leading to confusion. How did the travelling Buddhist priest notice so much yet
having said he only paid little attention? Is Takehiko from Kyoto or Wakasa? Was Masago
really raped? Was the old woman really the wifes mother? Why was the corpse wearing a
Kyoto style headdress? Can the medium really be trusted? Did the old woman simply not
know her son-in-law well enough? Who took out the sword? Who was actually wearing the
blue kimono? Who was actually wearing the lilac kimono? Who had a sword? Why would
Tajomaru, Masago, and Takehiko all confess to this killing? Who was saying the truth? What
had actually happened?

With these questions piled up, maybe the storys main objective in using multiple
witnesses testimonies is to confuse the readers and to show that the truth is difficult to know
completely. Some characters, with lies, may be protecting other characters or even
themselves. They may have a bad memory. They may not want to involve themselves further
in the investigation. The possibility of these notions, these perspectives only make it harder
for us readers to figure out what truly happened, but what we learned from this, for sure, is
that different narrators could and would probably mean different stories.