The Nuisance of Eastern Values vs. Western Values

After reading several stories in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, I struggled to figure out what lessons if any were present. Who is the villain here? The spirits are often just as sympathetic as the humans. Then I realized, maybe that is the exact point of these stories. So often in Western media we are creating a clear dividing line between good and evil, the hero and the villain, and ultimately heaven and hell. The west is dominated by the influence of christianity, and the themes and viewpoints of that religion find their way into media. Christianity takes a black and white viewpoint on morality, there is the ultimate goodness of g-d, and the ultimate wickedness of satan. A man on earth either picks one or the other to follow, designating him in either the heroic or villainous role. Despite secular culture growing in recent years, these literary roots still take hold of our media and ultimately our horror. In Japanese stories, which take many of their values from Buddhism, things are much more complex. The spirits are not always malevolent spirits out for chaos, but equally as complex as the human characters they share the story with. In The Story of Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi, the spirits of those killed in the battle at Dan-no-ura are not malicious. They simply appreciate Hoichi's beautiful music and wail in anguish upon his telling of their deaths. Despite temples being created in their honor, they can not find peace in what happened to them. If it was not for the intervention of the Priest, who assumed the spirits had bewitched Hoichi, he probably would have never known there was anything supernatural going on. He probably would have kept his ears. Hoichi being blind allows him to embrace the spirits as a loving audience, it is only those tainted by their assumptions who cause trouble for him. The spirit rips off his ear, not realizing that Hoichi was still alive and was only trying to honor him by bringing his remains to the cemetery. In Of a Mirror and a Bell, we sympathize with the woman who was forced to part with an object that had such great meaning to her, ultimately losing her life to her shame. Her spirit is not even malicious, offering reward to whomever could break the bell that caused her grief. The story ends on a sour note when the bell is dumped in a swamp, the object that caused the women so much grief gone to complete waste and not even allowing her to find peace by breaking it. In the stories of the Kwaidan, every character is sympathetic and the real cause for tragedy is miscommunication and misunderstanding. This lessons rings more true to real life than simply good and evil. 

Comments

  1. Morgan HunterFebruary 24, 2020 at 7:43 AM

    I really like your interpretation of how the concept of good vs. evil in j-horror, differs from what we commonly see in Western movies and literature. I agree that in these instances, the phantom archetypes come across as more layered - as their development incorporates ancient religious ideas that give them a sense of complex humanity. Another interesting theme that stood out to me in the Kwaidan Stories, was the implementation of karma with in the stories plots; even though they are scary, the way they end is kind of full circle and you as the reader can get a better understanding of how "j-horror" culture works.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Myth of Childhood

Neil Gaiman as an author is well known for tackling mythology and reinventing it in many different ways for his own books. In Good Omens, he uses christian mythology to create a love letter to humanity. In American Gods, he asks the question of what exactly is sacred and why when the greek pantheon move to American and adapts to the times. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is no exception in the way that it utilizes the triple goddess from greek mythology and reinterprets it into three very English women who are old enough to remember the old country and do their various chores the old fashioned way. However, the biggest myth that Gaiman decides to break down in this book is the myth of childhood itself. A running theme in this book and quite honestly throughout Neil Gaiman's ethos as an author is that children and adults are not actually as different as we think. The first paragraph of the book brings this idea to light. The narrator tells  the audience the black funeral clothes
Read more

The Distance to the Moon and Back and the Construct of Genre

This week we are attempting to distinguish between writing in genre and writing that may use elements of genre but that is essentially literary. Discuss this question in relation to the work(s) you read for this week. Do you think this is an important or necessary distinction, or not? The Distance to the Moon and Back is a story that isn't very mindful of genre, or at the very least doesn't really pay attention to typical genre archetypes. The story is technically sci-fi due to the fact that the idea stems from a scientific theory but in no way does Calvino try to make any attempt at making the logic of the story seem scientifically plausible. Obviously, if the moon was close enough to the earth that it seemed as if people could easily jump back and forth, life on earth would be in ruin due to the affects of the earth's gravity on the oceans, plant life, and so on. However, the idea is romantic and fun so it makes a compelling story. If anything, the story reads more like
Read more