Talk:In a Grove

I have a source for the Ambrose Bierce influence, but I don't have my notes with me right now. Please be patient. Jb05-zpt

http://www.ambrosebierce.org/journal2griffin.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.135.220 (talk) 02:38, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Also, The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce: Structuring the Ineffable (Lincoln and London: The University of Nebraska Press, 1984), p 131 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.135.220 (talk) 02:39, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

"The story is often praised as being among the greatest in Japanese literature." - Western or Eastern Influences, Japanese, both or overall? Make it clear because the movie Rashomon didn't have consistent feedback from both countries.--Hitsuji Kinno 21:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

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Akutagawa's influences for this story may have come from several different sources:

• A story from the classic Japanese collection "Konjaku Monogatarishū": In the 23rd story of the 29th volume—"The Tale Of The Bound Man Who Was Accompanying His Wife to Tanba"—a man is tied to a tree in a bamboo grove and forced to watch helplessly as his wife gets raped by a young thief, who has stolen all of their belongings

• "The Moonlit Road" by Ambrose Bierce: a short story about the murder of a woman, as told by her husband and herself (through a medium), and introduced by their son

• "The Ring and the Book" by Robert Browning, a narrative poem based on the true story about a murder told 12 different ways

In Japan, hundreds of theses have been written (and debated) searching for the "truth" behind the story, but have, of course, reached no conclusion.

* Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 12:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

The average user of the English Wikipedia speaks no Japanese, so when comparing the original text to translation, we can't expect people to check for themselves. Thus, I think it's important to provide citations for that part of the article. Anyone have any sources? --Unknownwarrior33 (talk) 06:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Can anyone include a summary of where, most probably, did the main weapons end up? I refer to these three weapons: Takehiro's sword, Tajomaru's sword, and Masago's knife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.1.53.3 (talk) 14:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

My translation uses the R spelling, but I see there's also a K spelling. Which should we use here? Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

It appears that the "Translation notes" section may be mostly original research. Although it does mention a different translation by a "Jay Rubin", it doesn't offer anything, either by way of prose or of citations, to indicate who Jay Rubin is and why he is an authority. Further, even if one assumes that Mr. Rubin a legitimate authority, whoever he is, it's still not clear whether his work supports only the use of an alternate translation, or actually supports the entirety of this section's detailed analysis as to exactly what is wrong with the first translation. 64.124.27.3 (talk) 00:39, 1 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. I found "It seems unlikely that Masago would fail at suicide so many times, particularly considering the first method she supposedly tried: driving her dagger into her neck" a particularly egregious bit of OR. Why should all would-be suicides find it equally easy? Vaughan Pratt (talk) 16:37, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

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This section has been moved from the article for unreferenced WP:OR, interpretation and inaccuracies – Robert Kerber (talk) 19:39, 9 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

All analyses proceed from these premises:

• Takehiro is dead, killed by a stab wound in the chest.
• Tajōmaru raped Masago.
• Tajōmaru stole Takehiro's bow and quiver, as well as the woman's horse.
• In each of the accounts, Masago wishes Takehiro dead, although the details vary.
• Masago and Tajōmaru did not leave together.

The differences between the characters' stories range from the trivial to the fundamental. What follows is a list of discrepancies between the characters' testimonies.

• The comb mentioned by the woodcutter is not mentioned by any of the other characters.
• The "violent struggle" that trampled the leaves, mentioned by the woodcutter, seems to occur only in Tajōmaru's version of the story—the sword fight.
• The woodcutter claims that Takehiro was wearing a Kyōto-style hat called a "sabi-eboshi", however Masago's mother says that he was not from Kyōto. We know that the author wanted to draw significance to this fact, because he specifically had the police investigator ask her if Takehiro was from Kyōto.
• The traveling priest says that he "clearly remember[s] that there were more than 20 arrows" in the man's quiver. The bounty hunter says that there were only 17.

• Tajōmaru does not mention how Masago's dagger disappeared from the crime scene.
• In Tajōmaru's and Takehiro's accounts, Masago and Tajōmaru have a long conversation after the rape, after which she is willing to leave with Tajōmaru, so long as her husband is dead. Masago's account omits this completely.
• Masago says that Takehiro was repulsed by her after the rape. This is not true according to the other accounts. From Takehiro's story, it is clear that he is furious at her, but he claims that this is because she asked Tajōmaru to kill him. In Tajōmaru's version, he still loves her so much that he is willing to fight to the death for her.
• Takehiro introduces a new and unlikely character: the person who stole the dagger from his chest, conveniently, mere seconds before his death. (The film Rashomon explains this by having the Woodcutter later admit to stealing the dagger, but this confession is not present in the original story. This actually isn't what the woodcutter's testimony shows, because he mentioned that all the blood had dried up and Takehiro claims that as the small sword was retrieved from his chest, "more blood flowed into my mouth".)
• Masago and Takehiro claim that Tajōmaru violently kicked her after the rape. Tajōmaru says that his desire to make Masago his wife forced him to battle Takehiro instead of kicking the woman off and running away.

In short, every character says at least one thing that is refuted by another.