Thoughts: "In A Grove" by Akutagawa Ryunosuke

So who done it?

Tajomaru, Masago, or the murdered man?

A man is killed. A criminal is caught. A woman is put to live in dishonor. Akutagawa Ryunosuke's short story "In A Grove" provides seven accounted testimonies of people to a high police commisioner about a said murder that happened in a grove in the mountains. The woodcutter said he, while cutting his daily quota of cedars in the forest, found the dead body in the morning, all dried up of blood. The traveling buddhist priest said he saw the man, together with the woman on horseback, along the road; he is at loss of words to adequately express his sympathy to the fate of the man. The policeman said he caught and arrested the criminal himself, of which he must say is the murderer. The old woman said she is the mother of the spirited woman and is aghast of what has become of her daughter. Tajomaru, the criminal, said he killed the man but not the woman, who had escaped from him. Masago, the woman, has come to a temple and said she killed the man, and that the criminal violated her. The man, the murdered man, through a sort of medium, said he killed the man, he killed himself.

It is said that truth is a fragmented one, and that there exists no truth that is actually absolute. For whatever human reason and for however these people involved in the story have twisted, covered up, extended, dramatized, lied, or, however defeating may this appeal, told the reality of the actual story of the murder that had happened, one thing here is tried to be buried in the mound yet is quite clear: "truth", and that it is a matter of positioning. Where one must stand to wholly see where truth stands is an unknown space. One must not rest on only one particular account of the truth; yet as what the short story likely is portraying, seven accounts of some truth are not even enough still. Truth is a fragmented one, and the fragments are unknown as to how many pieces. Twisting, covering up, extending, dramatizing, or lying are not the ones that are the matter in the story, but is the manner of how truth is perceived. Some say, one perceives truth in a manner one does for reasons like: immense probability that it might actually be real true, or personal want or desire for it to be actually true; these, among many others. Those who said those might be saying of the truth, but then again, they might not be as well.

A quote by a man named Harvey Sacks can be and is now raised: "Everybody has to lie because not all can handle the truth." Yes, this might true, but then again, it might not be, too. Or maybe, just maybe, not all can actually know what is truth.    


Read more about "In A Grove" by Akutagawa Ryunosuke through a complete digital storytelling here!

The woodcutter, the buddhist priest, the policeman, and the old woman