Explore death in Nanboku's play, Yotsuya Ghost Stories and Kyoden's Straw Sandals. How does death function within each work, and what issues arise among characters when confronted with death?
Introduction
A ghost story or stories of violence such as The Straw Sandal and the Yotsuya Ghost Stories are pieces of dramatical fiction that happens to join the supernatural or the belief in the supernatural with the realism. Even though Yotsuya Ghost Stories focuses more on the impression of ghosts and also the supernatural, and The Straw Sandal connects more with a contemporary fee, each story still focuses around the subject of death. Death in both stories appears to be a place that was considered another world that kept the souls captive, never to return but however that was not always the case, especially in Yotsuya Ghost Stories. Both of these that are written for both the screen and page examine the relationship among the living and the dead through their sometimes frightening circumstances that involve each other.
In Tsuruya Nanboku's Edo-period play, Yotsuya Ghost Stories, viewers and readers alike are introduced to a diversity of Lord Enya's retainers who chose not be as loyal to their lord as heroes like Chushingura's Yuranosuke even when it came to the face of demise. Death during this time there was a constant theme of death eveywhere. Death was really looked at something that was normal according to the play because it was actually everywhere at every time. Chief between these men was Tamiya Iemon, who started to fall upon times that are hard after Enya's death and, missing the ethical strength of the well-known 47 Loyal Retainers, searched for numerous notorious answers to his debt troubles.
In the beginning, he just begged for money in a poor part of Edo, which was really no different than characters like Kampei, who turned out to be a hunter to make what money he could. Nevertheless, when a chance to marry into a rich family became a very good option, Iemon actually went ahead and jumped on it directly, not to mention framing his servant, and then when necessary abandoning his old master.
Murder leads to death
The play has a lot of death scenes. In fact, from start to finish death is a theme that is constant. With all of the characters, death appears to be the solution to all of the problems. For instance, the story opens with a murder. Murder appears to be something that is quite common in the play. It appears that homicide by the characters was something that was planned out for some and an accident for others nevertheless, it was still death. When it comes to killing, there appears to be no type of conscious. Everyone is blinded by the ambition to get what they want such as in the case of Oiwa and Iemon. Iemon, who happens to be some kind of a jobless person married to Oiwa, slayed his father-in-law for the motive that he was aware of Iemon’s evil past presentations. Here, the motive to kill was to rid him of being able to do anymore of what is considered to be evil deeds. Death to Iemon appeared to be something that was necessary and on time. Iemon felt as though he was a judge and he held the power of life and death in his hands. He looked at demise is a form of Godsend because sending someone to the other side of life was a way to keeping them from interfering with those that were living. Iemon was not concerned about the fact rather or not it was right or wrong, he just knew that it was something that had to be done as soon as possible. Iemon believed that his father in law actually deserved death and in fact he felt entitled to be the one that would do the killing.
In giving a little backstory, from the play, it can be stated that Iemon has been enforced to make his living as an oil paper umbrella maker so as to support his subtle new child and wife. This condition has led him to start resenting Oiwa. Iemon is then lured into an arrangement to marry the beautiful granddaughter of a wealthy neighbor, who is very much in love with Iemon. So that the new path for the new marriage could be cleared, Iemon and the neighbor decided to move Oiwa out of the way. Lemon makes the decision that she, Oiwa, wanted her as far away from him as possible so that he could marry. However, the neighbor came up with a plan to make her look as ugly as possible. Disfiguring Oiwa was no big deal to the neighbor because they were just as devious as Iemon. Iemon wanted to set her up with his servant but little did he know all plans would go south and eventually bring the death of poor Oiwa. When the time came to get Oiwa out of the way, he gives Oiwa poison which would be disguised as "blood-road medicine," proposed to bring back her strength not knowing that it was poison. However, the poison disfigures her, causing all of her hair to fall out of her head and then it made her eye to start drooping. When a mirror is detained in front of her, her misery at her scar and the familiarity of her husband's disloyalty causes her to die. In this way, death did not come straight up it came from behind which means the poison is not what did the killing. It was Oiwa’s will to not want to live is what killed her.
When one of the faithful servant, named Kobote Kohei, found out what happened place or becomes aware of her death, Iemon then starts accusing him of theft and once all of these false accusations are centered towards Kobote Kohei Lemon has him has him killed as well. Oiwa’s death caused Iemon to just go on a little blood spree even though he did not kill his wife her blood was still on his hands but after Oiwa’s demise, it appeared as though death has become easier and easier for Iemon. The plot to kill turns out to be second hand nature without any worries. It appears that after a while, Iemon appears to even get a little fascinated with death. How? Well, he has Kohei and Oiwa's bodies crucified on two sides of a wooden door, which is then thrown into a river that was nearby.
Death by Accident
The next death would not be done purposely. Iemon starts to think his troubles are over, he goes ahead and then plans his new marriage. On the day of his wedding to his new bride, Iemon lifts her veil to see Oiwa’s derelict face. He promptly has her beheaded, only to discover he has killed his new bride as an accident. Dismayed, he escapes to the neighbor's house to confess what has happened, where he is then confronted by Kohei's ghost. While slashing at the ghost, Iemon then makes the discovery that he has killed his neighbor, which happens to be his new father-in-law. In these cases, the deaths were not intentional they were by accident but nevertheless, the theme of death is still very much present in this part of the act in the play. It appears that death has a way of exacting its own revenge because it appears that in the end, Lemon was not able to get what he had set out to do.
Death and Ghost
Death in the play is a means of a release into the spiritual realm. At death, the spirit of they once alive beings cross over to the other side but come back to get revenge. From there the haunting start to take place and continue on and on until there is vengeance that is taken place. The vengeful spirit of Oiwa comes from the other side of death to kill Lemon. Oiwa is an onry type of ghost who that wants nothing but to get and kill Lemon. Death has now turned into a mission from beyond the grave. Her strong passion for revenge is what really allows her to bridge the gap back to Earth in order to fulfill her agenda. Oiwa is able to share the most of the typical traits of this manner of Japanese ghost, counting the white dress on behalf of the entombment kimono that she would have been able to wear, the long, ragged hair and indigo/white face that marks a ghost in Kabuki Theater (Suwa, 2010).
Death is now in the form of a ghost but this time it is not something that can be killed. Everywhere Iemon goes, he sees her messed up face, even prominent from an overhead lamp. Looking for escape, Lemon departures to the mountains and then decides to go fishing. In place of fish, he hooks the board with the bodies of Kohe and Oiwa. She even looks more like death than she did before. However, her appearance is much grizzlier often showing up with partially bald head, which was another effect of the poison (Furudate, 2005). In a remarkable section in the kabuki play, the living Oiwa sits right before a mirror and then starts combing her hair, which comes starts to fall out because she was poisoned. The hair then piles up to marvelous heights, attained by a stage hand who sits up under the stage and then pushes ever more hair up through the bottom while Oiwa is combing (Suwa).
At this point, death stares Lemon straight in his face as a form of the supernatural, Iemon then decides to get away to a cabin that is in Hebiyama. It looks as if here that death now comes in the form of fear. Where the vines and ropes of the cabin appear to transform into what appears to be snakes and the smoke from the fire turns into Oiwa's hair. Escaping the cabin, he runs into his brother-in -law, who kills Iemon and retaliates every one of the murders.
Death in the Straw Sandal
The Straw Sandal discloses a multi-layered and captivating tale of revenge – done of course with Japanese-style, thus as long as a classic example of this general genre within Japanese literature. Nonetheless the author in this book goes on to promise several murders which involve things such as, a harakiri and other types of suicides, terrific battles, hairbreadth outflows, surprising recognitions and strange forms of meetings. Furthermore, there are sections of witchcraft and attraction with dreams, and ghost just like Yotsuya Ghost Stories and just like magic fears and ghosts who wander by night.
However, when it comes to death in the story, he is the leading theme very much the same way as in Yotsuya Ghost Stories. Much like Yotsuya Ghost Stories it starts off with a multilayered and captivating story of revenge. In this story death is also used as a means to end things regardless of the cost. Death is a tool in The Straw Sandal that appears to be something that is easy and the answer to all the problems. For instance, the Katsura-no-suke fell in love with the Fujinami. Katsura-no-suke was so in love with her that he felt sick in his stomach. However, he could not take it when the Banzemon started sending Fujinami letters. At that point and time the rage of jealousy set in and then he wanted to have Banzemon taken care of some kind of way. He could not bear the fact of another person even looking at his lovely Fujinami.
Katsura-no-suke not just loved Fujinami but he loved her until death do them part. He could not imagine being without her and the thought of seeing some else write letters to the woman he loved meant that they were trying to come in between he and his lover. Katsura-no-suke meant death when he proclaimed that he loved her. Death in this story not only meant the killing and the murdering but also the way a person felt about one another. Was it crazy love that Katsura-no-suke had for Fujinami? In contemporary times it might be said that it was after all he was head over heels for Fujinami and appeared that he would do anything to keep her even if it meant bringing in the physical type of death.
“In all of these love letters that you have written to Fujinami in order to try and seduce her into immorality you have committed a serious offence. Consider yourself dismissed by me.” (Kyoden, p. 152)
Death soon follows and it is not in the form of an accidednt but because an individual feels that something dishonarable is taking place. This person that feels this way is Sampachiro. However, Sampachiro did not like the fact that Katsura-no-suke was hanging out with Fujinami as being is concubine. He despised the whole thing and thought that Katsura-no-suke was being a dishonor to his family. Before this death took place, Sampachiro took it upon himself to give out warnings unlike in Yotsuya Ghost Stories where no one was warned before anything had taken place.
“You will bring disgrace not only on yourself but also on your family. I beg you to dismiss Fujinami and reform your ways at once” (Kyoden, p. 154). However, Katsura-no-suke refused to listen to what Sampachiro had to say to him. He simply just brushed him off as if he was nobody important. Now this left Sampachiro to decide to take matters into his own hands. “If neither words of mine nor any appeals to reason have the slightest effect on him then there is only one thing left for me to do (Kyoden, p. 154). It appears here that Sampachiro did not want to plan the demise of Fujinami but he felt like he was backed into a corner. Sampachiro as mentioned earlier that Katsura-no-suke needed to cleansed of sins by polluted himself with the likes of Fujinami. In Sampachiro eyes, she was like a bad flu that needed to be taken care of and obviously, he felt that he was just the man to do it. “but it stands to reason that once the root is cut, the leaves will wither (Kyoden, p. 154). Cutting the root meant killing Fujinami and would thus bring back the honor for Katsura-no-suke. Death to Sampachiro was looked at being a cleansing and a cutting away of things that were looked at as being impure.
As mentioned earlier, Sampachiro was not just a down right killer like those in Yotsuya Ghost Stories. He appeared to have somewhat of a conscious by saying the following: “It may seem brutal to kill an innocent girl but I cannot forget the honor of my Lord’s family (Kyoden, p. 152)” However, believing that what eh was doing was the right thing, he waited for her one night to leave Katsura-no-suke an upon doing so he trapped her in the midnight hours as the wind blew out her lantern. Sampachiro drew his sword and sliced at her until he drew blood. This was not just some clean death but very bloody. Sampachiro wasted no time in making sure that she was dead. “But Sampachiro anxious to put an end to her suffering stood directly above her and make sure that his sword went straight through her neck.” (Kyoden, p. 155)
However, death also came in the form of suicide later on. After Sampachiro killed Fujinami, he his wife and two children fled into the night until they reached some wooded area. Scared out of their minds, a beautiful girl standing in front of a ghost appears before them. It appears that the family had run into a forest of death because the young girl was obviously depressed and wanted to end it all. Death was all around the fleeing family but this time it was all supernatural. “There were certain trees that were known as the hanging trees (Kyoden, p. 157). This phantom had obviuosly hanged herself on one of these trees and was trying to get the girl to do the same. However, Sampachiro felt guilty because of the death of Fujinami so he tried to stop her from hanging herself on the tree. It appeared that depression was the motive for death in this situation but the relentless Sampachiro hung in there because he was determined to try and save her life. In the end he managed to suicide by talking her out of it and giving her some money to take care of her problems. Unlike in with Yotsuya Ghost Stories, death here appears to have been cheated. The suicide never takes place.
In conclusion, Yotsuya Ghost Stories and Kyoden's Straw Sandals are two unique pieces that tells the story of death with different circumstances. What makes them simliar is that death either is a way out by getting someone out fo the way or simply because they want to end their life because they are miserable. In both stories blood and gore appeared to be something that was stressed. Deaths were not pretty for Fujinami in Kyoden's Straw Sandals nor was it clean for Oiwa in Yotsuya Ghost Stories. In the end, both stories served their purposes in showing how death was very significant for each play.
Works Cited
Furudate, Shunichi. Sophistry school ghost story, Yotsuya senpai. Tokyo: Shueisha, 2005.
—. Sophistry school ghost story, Yotsuya senpai. 3 (Jump Comics) (Japanese edition). Tokyo, 2011.
—. Yotsuya sophistry school seniors of ghost stories. 1. Tokyo, 2010.
Kyoden, Santo. The Straw Sandal or The Scroll of the Hundred Crabs. Tokyo: Globe Oriental, 2005.
Suwa. Tokaido Yotsuya Ghost Story (Kabuki On Stage) Japanese Language Book. Tokyo, 2010.
