While the western definition of “monster” is not entirely synonymous with Japanese yokai, they both do share what “Monsterologists” like Komatsu Kazuhiko and Susan Sontag note as a profound connection between their appearance and “times of crisis.” While perhaps this connection is more prominent in the relationship between Godzilla and Japan’s “nuclear dialectic,” there is evidence that folktales of yokai nevertheless emerged during different times of crisis in Japanese history. This essay will explore the appearance of yokai in Yanagita Kunio’s The Legends of Tono in relation to anxieties of protecting local society and identity in “pre-modern” Japan, as well as the connection between Japan’s struggle with modernity and an increased exposure …show more content…
The folktale of the mayoi-ga (a house found when one loses his way) says that anyone who finds this house is able to take anything they like. In other words, this kami appears when one is in a literal crisis (being lost) to test their moral virtue. A woman who found the house, but did not take anything, later found a bowl that never decreased the volume of her rice. In contrast, a man who also stumbled across the mayoi-ga, but decided to return with others to take its possessions, was never able to find the house again. A similar moral can found in the story of the Stone Grain Mill These stories were likely directed to the villagers of Tono to not only constrain them to their social position, but to also show that people should be humble, otherwise bad things will occur. For example, the curse of a kami is seen in a story about Kahei the hunter who decided to kill a white deer kami out of self-importance, but instead shot a rock and ended up crippling his pride: “Being a famous hunter and disliking criticism from society, he resolved to shoot the deer…He found that what he had shot at was a white rock that closely resembled the shape of a deer…It is said that this was the one time he considered giving up hunting.” The phenomena of kami who appear and bestow good fortune among the …show more content…
The song has many phrases that praise various things like the bridge, the gate, or the stable, telling people to “come see this bridge,” or “come see this gate,” while remarking “Oh, What a wonderful era!” Even foreigners were given their own section in the collection, as if denoting they were part of the yokai experience. Therefore, a crisis in protecting or creating this important local identity can result in the creation of yokai. Examples of this can be seen in the stories about the kami of nature, which were created to explain everyday phenomena like birdcalls, or local aphorisms. On the section of “The Birds of Tono,” Yanagita tells one story of a daughter of a choja who lost her husband became the “otto bird,” whose cries sound like she is calling out for her husband. In another tale, it is said that the kakko and cuckoo were once sisters, and became birds due to a misunderstanding when they were
Much of what is considered modern Japan has been fundamentally shaped by its involvement in various wars throughout history. In particular, the events of World War II led to radical changes in Japanese society, both politically and socially. While much focus has been placed on the broad, overarching impacts of war on Japan, it is through careful inspection of literature and art that we can understand war’s impact on the lives of everyday people. The Go Masters, the first collaborative film between China and Japan post-WWII, and “Turtleback Tombs,” a short story by Okinawan author Oshiro Tatsuhiro, both give insight to how war can fundamentally change how a place is perceived, on both an abstract and concrete level.
Across different works like Virgil’s Aeneid and Aeschylus’ Eumenides, In these representations of monsters, the initial relationship between gods and monsters is simple: all monsters derived from the gods. However, as soon as distinguishing features set the monsters apart, they prove Clay’s point that monsters are seen as threats who need to be contained and whose powers need to be exploited by the gods. The close reading of both texts reveal the relationship between gods and monsters along with the power structures between
To briefly summarize this poem, I believe that the poem could be separated into three parts: The first part is composed in the first and second letters, which stress on the negative emotions towards the miserable pains, illnesses that the parents are baring, and also their hatred of the birds. The second part, I believe will be the third and fourth letters, which talks about the birds’ fights and the visiting lady from the church. And the last part, starts from the fifth letters to the rest of them, which mainly describe the harmonious life between the parents and those birds.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Jansen, Marius B.. "Japan Between the Wars." The making of modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. 495. Print.
Monsters are one of the most difficult things to define. They lack a black and white definition and as result they are open to many interpretations. Monsters are capable of imposing fear on certain groups of people, but not on others. In his story, “Beautiful Monsters,” Eric Puchner creates a scenario where unlikely groups of people are considered monsters. Similarly, Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay, “A Modest Proposal,” creates a variety of different monsters in one troubled society. Both pieces of literature, however, are not simply just descriptions of different monsters; instead their underlying themes serve as a message about how monstrosity is defined. Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” clearly supports Puchner’s message that monstrosity is a matter of perspective by exploiting the differences in society and how different people living in those societies are viewed.
Monsters are towering, fierce beings best known for causing nightmares and battling heroes. Tales are told of their devastating power, but also of their agonizing defeats. Monsters are symbols of the inherent evil of human nature and of the dark truths of the natural world. Monsters are also challenges, tasks a hero must complete. Sometimes monsters are the ultimate measure of a hero’s worth, other times just another step in a hero’s journey. In the book Bulfinch’s Mythology, Thomas Bulfinch writes that “Monsters, in the language of mythology, were beings of unnatural proportions or parts, usually regarded with terror, as possessing immense strength and ferocity, which they employed for the injury and annoyance of men.” Although independent of what they represent, Monsters come in numerous builds and multiple figures, like humans.
Peter H. Brothers’ “Japans Nuclear Nightmare” compares the movie Godzilla to a devastating period in Japan’s history: The Atomic Age. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States destroyed Japan. In this article, Brothers wants to educate the audience and accomplishes this by using ethos and pathos. He uses ethos by appealing to ethics and to show right and wrong to the Japanese culture and community. He also uses the rhetoric of pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotions. Pathos is one of the easier ways to capture the audience and the author does that by using imagery and symbols. Brothers’ connects
The couple in the story is a couple that has been together a long time and persevered through life together. When they first see the whooping cranes the husband says “they are rare, not many left” (196). This is the point in the story where the first connection between the couple and the cranes are made. The rarity of the cranes symbolizes the rarity of the couple’s relationship. Although they have started developing anomalies in their health, with the husband he “can’t smoke, can’t drink martinis, no coffee, no candy” (197) ¬—they are still able to laugh with each other and appreciate nature’s beauty. Their relationship is a true oddity; filled with lasting love. However this lasting love for whooping cranes has caused some problems for the species. The whooping cranes are “almost extinct”; this reveals a problem of the couple. The rare love that they have is almost extinct as well. The wife worries about her children because the “kids never write” (197). This reveals the communication gap between the two generations, as well as the different values between the generations. These different values are a factor into the extinction of true love.
Monsters have always been depicted as some atrocious beings that were created to inflict fear into whoever it could, in anyway possible. Monsters vary from culture to culture but never do they vary in the havoc they wreak and the fear they inflict in some. Three authors have shown a more advanced definition of what society sees as a monster.Three greatly written novels “Parasites and Perverts: An Introduction to Gothic Monstrosity” “Gothic Realities: The Impact of Horror Fiction on Modern Culture” “Civilized Vampires versus Savage Werewolves: Race and Ethnicity in the Twilight series” show clearly the theories in novels that depict others as the monster.
Gilmore, David D. "Why Study Monsters?" Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 210.
In this world, from a long time ago, monsters have appeared and presented around us in many telling story. In fact, monsters are considered as something which is abnormal, and usually accused of having the ability to threaten and destroy humanity. Perfectly, the film The Elephant Man emphasizes about John Merrick who has a disfigured appearance, and also is called a monster. Fortunately, Dr. Frederick Treves finds out about Merrick when he is wandering around the freak shows, and tries to examine and help Merrick come back to the real society. On the other hand, people have opportunities to observe and judge Merrick as a new phenomenon. In the connection to the same focus, Jeffery Cohen’s Monster Theory gives contentions about monsters and their influences to the real life and humanity in the relation to the film, especially the first thesis – Monster’s body is a cultural body, the sixth – Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire, and the seventh one – Monster stands at the threshold of becoming.
One example of such a monster that has been used to negotiate the anxieties of the changing times in which they specifically emerged is Godzilla. Godzilla was used to portray the Japanese’s trauma and fear over mounting nuclear threats, untrammeled environmental degradation, the shadows of World War II and rapid post-war construction. The climate and nuclear anxiety in Japan reach new heights in 1954, even before Gojira was released. On March first the United States detonated a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, a weapon
The 1950s was a seminal point in Japanese history: the point at which the Japanese populace had to reject or accept the westernization of their country. Yukio Mishima personally rejected this new culture, instead choosing to grasp onto traditional Shinto, the native religion of Japan. The overarching cultural machinations and shifts that occurred would ultimately be reflected in Mishima’s The Sound of Waves. He efficaciously utilized the interpersonal relationships crafted in the novel as a method of better conveying his views against the westernization of Japan. The definition of these characters as cultural symbols carries weight in and of itself, and further interactions between these characters give rise to a near-allegorical level of symbolism. The end result of this is an ingratiation of Mishima’s cultural beliefs with those of the reader.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.