The history of the Abe family is one of the most dramatic and impressive stories Mori Ogai have described in his works. It tells how the action of one man can shame all the family. Those times when Hosokawa Tadatoshi ruled, the devoted samurais used to ask their lords to make a suicide after their death, as they wanted to serve no other lord. But only some of them were lucky to get such a credit. Their families were awarded with high stipends, privileges and honor. Suicide without authorization was a disgrace.
The lord Tadatoshi had eighteen retainers, all recipients of their lord’s special favors, who had earnestly begged for and were granted permission to commit suicide. But there was one more person, a samurai who did not get the permission of Tadatoshi. Abe Yaichiemon Michinobu killed himself though his request for suicide was denied. That is why the Tadatoshi’s successor recommended the strategy of breaking up the Abe family allotment. All the dynasty was disgraced, all five Yaichiemon’s sons were gradually shunned by their fellow samurai and passed their days in a state of despondency. On the first Lord Tadatoshi’s death anniversary Abe Yaichiemon Michinobu’s son Gombe broke the discipline and later he was executed like a common man, without respect and reverences on the sentence of having acted irreverently.
In those circumstances, the Abe family was dishonored and offended. They assembled all their women and children and secluded them in Gombe’s Yamazaki residence. Those actions contradicted the lows of those times. The government had made the decision to attack the mansion and catch all the members of that dynasty. The army besieged the mansion of the Abe family. But after a splendid dinner all the family made the suicide by the morning, all the women and children killed themselves. The whole family was dead except of four Yaichiemon’s sons.
Those who survived fought bravely, the old friend of the family also helped him. But they had a lack of people, the army of lord won. Everyone from the Abe family who stayed alive by the morning were killed during the attack. In such a way this work by Mori Ogai shows us the bright example from the human history when one wrong action of the head of the family doomed everyone to death. But also it says about the devoted hirelings who were ready to share everything with them including the death.
Works Cited
Mori Ogai. Abe Ichizoku; or The Abe Family. 1913. Print
