Kwaidan
I had previously never read any Japanese horror, so this
week was an entirely new experience. After our previous weeks of gothic I had
seen authors exploration of the nature of evil. What makes it? How can it be
labeled? However, it is obvious that the Japanese culture has quite a different
take on this. Rather than trying to explore evil it seems to be in absence. There
is no good and evil in these short stories; the spirt world is fairly neutral. An
example of this lies with the man who is solicited to play and tell tales to
spirts at a gave site. When the spirt comes to collect him, a type of spell has
been preformed when the symbols painted on his body prevents the undead from
seeing him. When the sprit proceeds to rip off the man’s ears, this is not per
say “evil”. The spirt is simply following orders and in a logical way. He was
told to bring the man, and all that is there of the man to the spirits eyes are
his ears so he takes them. It is not the sprits fault that the mans ears had
failed to be painted.
Such a notion of good and evil taking an absence,
along with the idea of hero, was a refreshing experience. Without this staple
of western literature and cultural perception I felt able to see things in a
new light. The stories seemed less cluttered, with more interesting takes on
reasons for delivery. The story of the mirror and the bell is anything but what
one would expect of a western ghost story. Instead of the typical fear inducing
spirts we have come accustomed too, we find the mortals reaping benefit and
having feelings of thanks toward it. I think that a large part of my enjoyment
came mostly from the fact that I was unsure of what to expect, and this in
effect allowed me to become more immersed in the story: I was intrigued.
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