27 pages • 54 minutes read
In A Grove
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Position in Society
Content Warning: This section refers to sexual assault and suicide.
Japanese social castes play an integral role in many of Akutagawa’s stories, such as “Rashōmon” and “Hell Screen.” Akutagawa chose to set “In a Grove” far in the past, during a time when Japanese social castes were more stringent than they are today. The characters of “In a Grove” occupy very well-defined social roles, and this dictates much of their behavior. In a society with strict rules, bandits are executed, rape victims are shunned, and defeated warriors must atone through seppuku. All three characters seem quite resigned to these outcomes. This is one reason why Akutagawa leaves their exact actions ambiguous: Their agency is limited to begin with.
Tajomaru punctuates his grandiose tale of overpowering a trained samurai with jabs at the police officers interrogating him. Early in his confession, he goes on what seems like a tangent to criticize killing a man’s soul by submitting him to a social authority, claiming it is a worse crime than literally ending someone’s life. The implication is that those of higher status are no better than Tajomaru and probably worse, as Tajomaru merely does what he “needs” to do to survive. Marrying a noblewoman, like defeating a warrior with training, is a fantasy for a member of the peasantry, but if would be a form of social mobility; if Masago were to agree to a marriage, it would prove Tajomaru was more than a mere bandit and possibly provide him with a more secure lifestyle.
Masago’s struggle with her societal position is the result of being “dishonored” by the bandit. In her own account, she makes no mention of remarrying—a detail present in both Tajomaru’s and Takehiko’s accounts—and focuses solely on atoning for her shame. Though she understands that this means her own death, she cannot follow through. She clearly views it as a personal failure that she cannot commit suicide.
Although Takehiko, as a nobleman, is the most comfortable with his station in life, Akutagawa drops a curious detail near the end of his account that drives home the relevance of social position to this story. In his final moments, Takehiko describes someone gently pulling the dagger from his chest. This moment wraps around to the beginning of the story, when the woodcutter describes the items he found at the crime scene, specifically saying there was no weapon. Any blade dropped by a samurai would cost more than a peasant could expect to see in a lifetime. To bookend the story with a peasant taking something of value from a noble emphasizes the importance that social positioning plays in Akutagawa’s tale.
Reputation and Legacy
The story’s setting—the distant past—suggests another explanation for its focus on subjective accounts rather than objective truth. History is distant and unknowable except for the stories passed down to us, and even piecing these narratives together may not result in an accurate picture. Rather than seeking to recreate events as they happened, most histories prior to the last few hundred years served an ideological purpose for their contemporaries. Further, the restrictive social roles that the characters of “In a Grove” inhabit make reputation one of the few things they have any control over.
As such, the characters from “In a Grove” appear far more concerned with the legacies they leave behind than a fair and balanced account of events. Even the minor characters show concern for their legacies and reputations. The traveling priest seems embarrassed over the attention he gave Masago, and the police officer expresses some amazement over having captured a famous bandit.
Faced with imminent death, Tajomaru immediately begins to spout a manifesto. He gives the investigator his credo on thievery and murder, he criticizes the establishment, and he shows himself acting with honor in the presence of his victim. At one point, he states, “I am Tajomaru” as explanation for how he overpowered an assailant armed with a knife, and he concludes his story by asking for the ultimate punishment, seemingly in defiant challenge. The bandit is undoubtedly a poor man who even in life has nothing but his reputation. Bringing his concern for his reputation to the forefront as he faces capital punishment shows more about his character than readers could learn from a descriptive account of his crime.
Tajomaru shares this concern with his opponent. Readers may question what motive a dead man would have for lying about the circumstances of his death, but the very fact of his death—i.e., the fact that all that remains of him on earth is his legacy—signals that his story is more important than his true history. His account reveals ambiguous feelings (though leaning toward contempt) for his wife, but it also paints a forgiving picture of Tajomaru. Whatever truly transpired, Takehiko clearly wants to leave behind an image of himself as a man who lost to a worthy opponent, perhaps because of his wife’s betrayal.
Truth and Reading the “Negative Space”
Unreliable narrators are often an exercise in telling a story through lies. Though this may seem paradoxical, it isn’t unheard of in the artistic world. Artists can create amazing pictures by using negative space, and an unreliable narrator highlights the negative space of a story. Although the truth of the story’s events is unknowable and (thematically) unimportant, “In a Grove” tempts its readers to search for the truth not in the characters’ words, but in the absence of detail and contradictions.
Readers can assume corroborated details are in fact true. The priest and the policeman provide similar descriptions of the samurai’s possessions, and all the accounts agree that Tajomaru sexually assaulted Masago and that Takehiko was, indeed, killed. Although only Tajomaru’s story described Masago attacking him, both the samurai and his wife mention a dagger present in the grove, so it is reasonable to assume that this attack occurred.
However, details omitted from each account often suggest more than language can. Of the three main characters, only Tajomaru does not mention striking Masago. Because the other two agree on this, it seems reasonable to assume that it happened. The fact that Tajomaru would admit to rape but not to this communicates something about his character; he likely views forcing sex on a woman as redounding to his masculinity but physically assaulting a defenseless woman as weakness. Likewise, Masago alone erases Tajomaru’s marriage proposal from her narrative, whether because she views it as cruel mockery or because she can’t bring herself to include details that might reflect positively on her rapist. Although Tajomaru says he untied Takehiko and engaged in a fair fight, both the samurai and his wife describe his death occurring beside the cedar root where the woodcutter found him, likely indicating that the battle was less even than the bandit claims.
Though the ultimate sequence of events remains obscure, the use of contradictions and clear lies invites the reader to piece together a story using the negative space in the narration. Because this requires a kind of thought that most stories don’t ask of their readers, Akutagawa accomplishes his goal of using the story’s structure rather than its plot as the main venue for artistic expression.
Unlock all 27 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
