The Wise Old Woman By Yoshiko Uchida

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“The Wise Old Woman”

The story of “The Wise Old Woman,”retold by the author Yoshiko Uchida, is a folktale dated back to the time of medieval Japan.The theme of this story is that the elderly have more wisdom than most do, and that elders are not completely useless after all. It is the story of a young yet cruel and arrogant lord, who had made a decree, that anyone at the age of seventy-one or older must be left in the mountains to die. Except for one young farmer, who could not accept to leave his mother in the mountains to die alone. It came to be about two years that he had kept his mother safe, until another dreadful lord appeared at the village with impossible demands to execute, and with no wise elders to give answers to these problems …show more content…

The definition of plot is “The main events of a play, movie, novel, or similar work devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.” So the main events of the story are the demands made from Lord Higa, and the events to solve them. For example, one of the tasks given to the young lord was to bring him a drum that beat, without being beaten. “Bring me a drum that sounds without being beaten.” When the young farmer ran home to his mother and told her this impossible demand she had said, “Why, this is the easiest of them all.” Eventually when the young farmer had told his lord of his crimes, the lord was happy to hear it. “But when he glanced fearfully at the lord, he saw that the young ruler was not mad at all.” Because of Lord Higa’s demands the young lord was capable of realizing that the elderly have more to bring to their community, and that they aren’t useless after all. The examples given were all examples of how the plot of a story can expose its theme. The story of “The Wise old Woman,” displayed the theme that the old and wise can bring more wisdom to the community than most. In this section the examples given were an illustration of how either character dialogue or the plot of the story may unveil the theme. The demands made from Lord Higa also helped convey the theme, it helped the young lord realize that the only person that was clever enough to help them was the wise old woman. The stated theme of this story is that the old and wise are much more useful and wise than most

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