Samurai Class In Japan

The late Tokugawa period marked the start of Japan’s evolution with western ideologies. The internal crisis during the Tokugawa period, however, showed that Japan as a nation still had many issues they needed to discuss such as equality from all social classes (including those from Eta), economic instability, and the deficiency of the samurai class, especially with the high-rank samurai. The Twilight Samurai and Musui’s Story both depict the deficiency of samurai class during the Tokugawa period with the struggles of the low-rank samurai trying to find ways to support themselves all while trying to keep up their status as a samurai. Both the film and autobiography also show that bushido was far from a normative philosophy through the acts of
With the arrival of Commodore Perry, instead of sending a high-rank samurai to negotiate, they sent a middle-rank samurai, Kayama Eziemon, to intercept the American ships and negotiate whatever they needed. Kayama had already known that the Americans would come to Japan but did not know when, “Kayama, in fact, had been prepared for some time for this very event, despite official denials emanating from the highest levels of the shogun’s government” (Wiley 288). Kayama’s attempt to warn the higher officials was denied because he was lower than them and this shows that high-rank officials did not listen to anyone whose rank was below theirs. Similarly to this in The Twilight Samurai, Seibei, a low-rank samurai, gets caught in a feud between Tomoe’s ex-husband and brother. He takes Koda’s challenge to a duel in place of Tomoe’s brother, Iinuma Michinojo, despite being a lower rank than Koda. Once the duel is settled with Seibei the victor, Koda ashamed by his defeat of a lower ranking samurai tells his fellow samurai. Then his fellow samurai tries to challenge Seibei to a duel, showing that high-ranking samurai did not tolerate defeat, especially by a low-ranking
Many of the protests and movements that occurred were during the time of famine and the end of the era, “peasants protested most frequently during periods of famine and at the end of the era, when the Tokugawa hegemony collapsed” (Vlastos, 11). With the protests occurring during periods of famine and the end of the era, chaos rises as this brings more issues to officials. The Twilight Samurai shows the famine issue by having dead bodies float ashore while people are fishing or passing by the river. This adds effect to the notion that the Tokugawa period was having a crisis because of the deaths