Week 7 Essay: Analyzing a Recurring Motif

For this week’s essay I am focusing on the reoccurring theme I have seen in two of the past units I have read. The theme is the idea of “wanting what you don’t have.”

A want button where you can press what you want, Image source: LaBLog

Last week one of my favorite stories from the Japanese FairyTale (Lang) unit was The Stonecutter. This story follows a poor stonecutter who happens upon the magical spirit of the mountain one day when he is cutting stone. He wishes he is rich and the spirit grants his wish by giving him a palace to live in. But this is not enough. When he sees a prince who has servants to shade him from the sun, he wishes to be a prince. He wants what he does not have. But this was not enough power for the prince. He wanted to have power over all the earth, so he wished to be the sun, but when the clouds covered the sun and cast the earth in shadows, he wished to be a cloud. And when the cloud stormed and destroyed the village but did not damage the mountain, he wished to be the mountain. Until, one day a stonecutter came by and began to chip at him for the stone. He then wished to be a man and he was content for the rest of his days. Through the journey, he constantly wanted what he did not have. He was never satisfied with what he had to start with until he saw that, in the end, it was what he wanted most.

This week one of my favorite stories in the unit Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) was the tale entitled The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die. The man named Sentaro does not want to die and part with all of the splendors he owns in this life. He had heard tales of there being an elixir of life that would make him last forever and he decided he must have it, so he sets out to Mt. Fuji to find the hermits who possess it. In order to obtain the elixir and live forever Sentaro must become a hermit. 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. So his next option to live forever is to venture to the land known as Perpetual Life where the people live forever. But, the people there have heard of Paradise, a magical place you go to only when you die. So Sentaro, who came from a land where you do die wanted to find eternal life and the people who had eternal life only wanted to die. This shows a perfect example of people wanting what they do not have. Luckily, for Sentaro it was just a dream and he soon realized that he did not want to live forever, and returned from Mt. Fuji to his land where he would eventually die.

Week 7 Storybook: The Old Woman of Adachigahara

LONG, long ago there was a large plain called Adachigahara in the province of Mutsu in Japan. This place was said to be haunted by a cannibal goblin who took the form of an old woman…

It was said that after dark the land was not safe. The goblin only took her captives at night. Stories were told of how she would eat and destroy innocent men and boys for bothering her in her secluded cottage near the edge of town. The windows were tattered, the wood was withering, and weeds surrounded the entire cottage. The stories mentioned that in one of the rooms lay bones and bloodstains of the Goblin’s victims who had been there before. Everyone of Adachigahara stayed clear of the area. Anyone they had ever known to venture near the cottage, had never returned.

One evening, an orphan was traveling through Adachigahara with no food, no shelter, or no clothes but the rags on his back. He had been walking all day and just needed a place to rest his feet for the night. They were blistered and had gone num. He had already passed through the town, and was making his way through the fields when he saw an old run-down cottage with a lantern burning inside.

The orphan walked to the gate and up towards the door. Instead of knocking, for he was afraid the tattered door would fall down with his touch, he yelled to see if anyone was home.

“What do you want?” responded a voice that sounded like it came from a frail old woman.

“Oh thank you, someone is home. It seems my prayers have been answered, for you see I am wandering through the land and have walked all day. I only wish for a place to rest my head tonight,” replied the orphan boy.

“Well I can not help you,” said the old woman sharply.

“No, please ma’am. You must help me or I will have to sleep outside with the beasts. I can’t take another step; my feet are bloody and tired from my long journey. Please allow me to at least sleep on the floor. I promise I will not be a bother,” begged the orphan.

“Fine, you may come in for the night and rest,” replied the old woman. “I will give you some food and some rags for you feet.”

Traveler approaches the Old Woman's cabin, Image source:Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

The orphan walked inside and sat down in a rocking chair. “Thank you ma’am. You do not know how much I appreciate your sympathy and kind heart.” 

The old woman went to the sink and fixed some warm rags for the poor orphan’s feet and brought him some warm broth to sip on. The orphan could not believe how blessed he was to have found the old cottage on the edge of town, even if it did look like something out of a haunted story. As the fire was burning down, the old woman began to put on her coat and head towards the door.

“I am going out to get more wood before the fire burns out,” explained the old woman. “"You must sit where you are and not move, and, whatever happens, don't go near or look into the inner room. Now mind what I tell you!"

“I understand,” replied the orphan. After she shut the door and left the front gate, he began to ponder. He did not understand why the old woman was so adamant about not opening the door to that room. She seemed like such a kind old lady. What could she have to hide? His curiosity started to get the best of him, as he got up out of the chair and walked towards the door of the back room. He must know what was behind it. Could it be gold? He could rob the old woman and be rich and an orphan no more. His hand hovered over the handle as he went to turn it.

He immediately dropped his hand and thought to himself. “This woman has been so nice to me and offered me shelter, warm rags for my feet, and food. I must not disobey her wishes.”

The orphan returned to sit in his chair and waited for the old woman to return. As she opened the door to see the orphan still sitting there, she almost had a surprised look on her face.

As she went to put the new wood on the fire, and the flames burst up the old woman thought to herself, “He must not have opened the door like all the others have before. He would not still be here if he saw the bones and blood that lay in that room. All the others ran away and tried to escape- even though they failed. No, this one is different. He obeyed my orders, and for that his life shall be spared.”

The orphan boy fell asleep in the rocking chair with the warm rags on his feet as the old woman laid a blanket over him so he would not get cold during the night.

Author’s Note: The original story, The Goblin of Adachigahara,  included an old priest who came wandering through the town and landed upon the old woman’s house who was rumored to be a cannibal goblin. The woman warned him not to look in the back room while she was gone, but the priest let his curiosity get the best of him and he opened the door to find bones on the floor and blood splashed on the walls. He immediately ran out of the house, and the old woman saw him fleeing and knew he must have looked into the room despite her warnings. She chases after him in her goblin form through the night, until daylight breaks and she is forced to retreat. I kept the story the same in the beginning but switched the priest to an orphan boy. I wanted to drastically change the ending to make a moral of the story that the old woman spares the boy’s life because he obeys her wishes not to look into the room.

Bibliography: The Goblin of Adachigahara. Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, with illustrations by Japanese artists (1905)

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.