The Rashomon Effect

Eyobel Tesfamariam
Mr.
Eng 111- D29
4/12/2016
Rashomon Effect
The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible of it. The word Rashomon derives from Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 Japanese epic film Rashomon. Rashomon which is infact based upon a short story written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa called Yabu no Naka (In a grove) tells the story of the brutal rape of a women named Masako Kanazawa and the alleged murder of her husband who is only describe as the Samurai by a notorious bandit named Tajōmaru. But as the story evolves more and more characters come forward with their own versions of the tale.
At the beginning of the
story the woodcutter tells his own unbiased version of how he goes to the courthouse to find that tajomaru is on trial for the murder of the samurai. Tajomaru starts off by saying that he was resting from the sun when he eyes the samurai and his wife riding on a horse through the forest. He ignores them till he sees how beautiful the samurai’s wife is and get’s the urge to have her for himself. He then approaches the samurai with a story of how he had buried the good’s he has burgled and that he need help digging it up in return the samurai would get a significant portion of it. He even shows hands him his prized katana to show that he was telling the truth. Upon separating the samurai from his wife tajomaru knocks out the samurai and eventually rapes the wife. But according to him the wife is ashamed of the fact that two men now know about her dishonor and she begs that her husband and the bandit duel so that she can go with the winner. After an epic sword fight the bandit kills the samurai but unfortunately for him the wife runs away. Then the woodcutter retells the wife’s side of the story, according to her Tajomaru leaves after raping her and she begs her husband to take her life for dishonoring him but the samurai instead take’s his own life for failing to protect his one and only wife. The movie also goes to show the samurai’s side of the story as well as the woodcutter’s who just happens to be hiding something.
The point of Rashomon is that is shows how events are interpreted differently by the individuals at hand with each interpretation contradicting one another. The story is Mr. Kurosawa’s way of showing how the japanese viewed the deeds their government was committing during world war two vs how the world viewed it. A classic example of this is the suicide missions that were taken on by japanese pilots during world war two otherwise knowns as kamikaze. In japanese society death by suicide is seen as an honorable way to go especially if it is to serve the emperor and the people. As such the pilots were headstrong in the belief that by devoting their lives to the mission and effectively turning them into missiles that they were serving a far greater purpose than the usual soldier.
On the other hand the rest of the world regarded the japanese pilots as crazy and brainwashed for taking upon mission that would end up killing even if they fail to actually hit the target.
To illustrate how the rashomon effect can be used to justify kamikaze would be disastrous. But what kurosawa shows is that the japanese had their own interpretation of it not because of the culture they had at that time but instead because they are human beings. Human beings are biologically made to hide or lie their shame as well their guilt. We usually do this by creating our own versions of a particular event and portraying ourselves as heroes. But at the same time the rest of the world doesn’t see the japanese pilots as heroes but instead as lunatics which in truth they kinda were. But each story would contradict one another as the japanese at least at that time were going up against the whole world especially by the end of the war. In turn the whole thing becomes a mess of interpretations and stories thus becoming The rashomon effect.
The rashomon effect is a theory born out of something we all experience on our daily lives. It is the way we can sleep at night even after we commit horrible deeds which in turn we subconsciously convert to something good. It is in other ways the basic idea of the consciousness and ethics we live
by.