Week 7 Reading Diary: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

This week I decided for my Diaries to just focus on one story that I really enjoyed: for part A I focus on the story The Man Who DidNot Wish to Die from the Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) unit. 

The introduction where Sentaro reflects on the life of the Chinese King Shin-no-Shiko, who had everything but was still miserable, made me really ponder. The king had everything he could ever want: “the luxury and the splendor of his Court, the wisdom of his councilors and the glory of his reign” but yet he was so unhappy because he knew one day he must die. He would leave all of his treasures and glory behind. It was for this reason the thought of death plagued his thoughts every second of every day. It seems ironic to me that he did not want to part with the most wonderful things he had in life, yet he was not truly enjoying them because his misery surrounding the thought of death made him depressed in all matters.

            The story then transitions back to Sentaro, who is in the same dilemma as Shin-no-Shiko was in having wealth and wanting to live forever. He then sets out to Mt. Fuji to find the hermits for the Elixir of Life. I also thought it was interesting how hermits were the keepers of the elixir, when in most tales it is an old wise man or someone looked more highly upon than a hermit.

Upon switching to the next part of the story, I can see that my intuition was correct about the hermits. Jofuku criticizes Sentaro for being selfish and saying he would never be able to live the life of a hermit because he would “never be able to go barefoot or to wear only one thin dress in the winter time.” Jafuko questions him. “Do you think that you would ever have the patience or the endurance to live a hermit's life?” Sentaro has been spoiled his whole life, and the reason he seeks the Elixir is in order to live this grand life forever, not a life of being cold and hungry and barefoot. It shows his true selfishness

I loved the mention of the paper crane he flew on to the magic city- oragami- and reflects the Japanese culture.

One of my favorite parts of the story is when Heaven is mentioned as Paradise. “Priests had come over from India and China and told them of a beautiful country called Paradise, where happiness and bliss and contentment fill all men's hearts, but its gates could only be reached by dying.” It is a strong allusion to Heaven. The people of the land of Perpetual Life, who could live forever, only wanted to die to reach Paradise. Sentaro was the only happy one on the island, because he was the only one not wishing for death.

AH but it was all just a dream! I did not see this coming at all and thought it added so much to the story. The dream allowed him to see his life if he were to live forever, and then he even saw that then he did not wish for death. “Your desire for death was not real, for even at that moment you cried out loudly and shouted for help." I think we can all relate to the idea of fearing death, yet knowing death brings eternal life in Heaven and yearning for that. 

Part B Reading I decided to focus on the story The Goblin of Adachigahara.  

When starting the story, I did not expect the Goblin to be a poor old woman who, legend had it, devoured men at night and tossed their bones into an empty room. The title did not give hint to this. But from the beginning, instead of starting with "Once upon a time" it starts with "Long, long ago" and I think this introduction sets the stage for a kind of "ghost story." I got the sense from the opening that it would be more of a wicked kind of tale. This story was far more gruesome and disturbing than those of the first half of the unit. This story had no twists and turns as the story of The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die. It alluded to the Goblin who ate humans, and then the man who stayed with her ended up being her prey. He did escape and thanked his life to his prayers to Buddha. This ending does set it apart from other grim fairy tales, such as the Persian fairy tales, where most of the characters die an awful death. The man was warned by the Goblin not to look into the room and it seems that, like all the men before him, his punishment for giving into his curiosity was to be eaten by the Goblin.