Old Woman Retold

Theme Essay
The theme of this Japanese folktale, “The Wise Old Woman,” retold by Yoshiko Uchida, helps readers learn a larger lesson about life. This folktale tells the story of a mother and her son who breach a law that “anyone over seventy-one must be banished from the village and left in the mountains to die.’ To do so, the son made a hole in the floor of his house where his mother could live in secret. Later on in their lives, there was a cruel lord who came to take over the village and if the villagers could not overcome the difficult tasks he created, then he would become their new lord. The wisest men of the village could not conquer these obstacles, and the boy had told his mother what was going on when she noticed something was on his mind. The mother had solutions to every problem, and when the young lord figured this out he was astonished at how much wisdom she had and revoked the decree. The lesson of this folktale is to always have respect for older people, for they are incredibly wise.
The theme of a story is not usually directly stated, therefore you have to carefully look for clues while reading. For example, when the young farmer refuses to take his mother to the mountains to die and hides her in a hole in the floor, readers can infer that he will either have a great consequence, or that the other villagers, or even the young lord, will finally take his side. Since the young farmer did not take his mother into the mountains, later on in the folktale when the young lord had his issues the mother was able to solve them because she was still alive. This quote in paragraph 42, “You are far wiser than any of the wise men of the village,’ hints that the young lord might figure this information out and learn a