What Is The Moral Of The Movie Rashomon

Have you ever wondered why people lie or even exaggerate their lie, when they know that it is a lie? Well the answer is because we as humans lie for our personal gain to help our perceptions of ourselves and help us seem better than what we actually are. However, in reality, we are no better than what people think of us. But we are not capable of judging ourselves, so we cannot be honest with ourselves either. To perceive ourselves badly, we have some made up reason as to why. We try to find reasoning and justify everything so that we don’t have a bad image. Self-esteem, having confidence and satisfaction for yourself and your abilities, is what helps us feel good about ourselves, so we try to keep our self-esteem high so that we can feel
good. So, why are we eager to lie to alter who we are? What is it about ourselves that we are not content with? Is it because we want to be viewed as that perfect person where no mistakes or wrong-doings can happen, because that’s not possible? To better analyze the human’s perspective of the truth, “Rashomon,” a film directed by Akira Kurosawa, in 1951, is a film where one has to conclude their own ending as well as which story is the truth, with the lesson of understanding why people lie.
“Rashomon” features a variety of characters that tell a story or testimony on a particular event that is supposedly the truth.
However, each story contradicts the others. As the film begins, there are three characters, a priest, a woodcutter, and a commoner, sitting under a shelter from a rainstorm discussing a crime that consisted of a rape and murder. They tell four different testimonies, that of the wood cutter, bandit, wife, and the samurai himself, each seen through a flashback. Although each story is different, they all are similar in the way that the teller has justified the story to each character’s personal role in the story. In each story, except one, the teller was the murderer. Each teller admits to the crime, but they blame someone else for their wrong doings. On the contrary, the one that didn’t admit to being a murderer still lied to the police and stole. This goes back to the self-esteem mentioned earlier, to keep it from getting low, they told a more interesting testimony that would not make them liable for the
“wrong-doing.”
The bandit, Tajomaru, was the suspect for committing this rape. In comparison to today’s term of rape, the victim is at fault and is blamed. Tajomaru committed the crime but the wife is to blame for it happening. He blames her for not only the rape, but also the murder. Another reason that the bandit gives is that the two fought well, which is why he shouldn’t be held accountable. He was trying to justify the murder and rape. He was trying to make the audience believe that his testimony was the truth while also making himself seem to be a good person. After hearing the story of Tajomaru, the commoner stated, “It’s human to lie. Most of the time we can’t even be honest with ourselves.” We as humans never want to be looked at as a bad person, so we exaggerate for our own purpose. Therefore, if we have to lie to increase our self-esteem, then nothing is going to stop us. Tajomaru, is already known as a criminal, so he will try to make his status as good as possible when he gets a chance, even if it’s believable or not.
Once we listen to Tajomaru’s testimony, we are left to conclude whether it is the truth or a lie. But why shouldn’t we believe him, if he admits to being a suspect in the crime? Although we have his testimony, the wife’s testimony interferes with what we have come to believe. In contrast, the wife has made herself out to be the victim in her own story, rather than the actual victim, who is her husband. One can feel sympathy for her because she was a victim of the rape, but her husband made her feel even worse with a look of “loathing and contempt.” In comparison, this relates to situation in today’s era, because people that are close to those that are victims of rape, do frown at them and make it seem as if it is their fault and put them down allowing their personal self-esteem to decrease. She asks for the worst repercussion possible, death, because she was a victim to something she didn’t ask for. However, with this testimony, she could only recall that she fainted and awoke at the death of her husband. She then goes on to state that she tried to commit suicide, but all her efforts failed. The wife tries to better perceive herself by stating in her testimony, “what should a poor, helpless woman like me do?” With that statement, she did gain sympathy from me and most likely from others in the audience. She was the victim, as well as the suspect, but she doesn’t feel that she should be held accountable because she is grieving and wishes death upon herself. From this testimony, the truth is up to you to decide because her self-esteem can be perceived as low now or high depending on the perspective it is looked at. The wife is saying that she feels horrible for her awful crime and doesn’t feel that she should live.
Now we have two stories that give a sense of confusion and we don’t know what to believe.
We get a third story from the victim, the dead man. So now that we have two stories, which both seem to be the truth, what are we to do with a third, especially one from a murdered man told through a medium? We should believe a dead man because he doesn’t have a purpose to lie. Well from this story, he gives the feeling that he was a victim of a suicide rather than a homicide because he doesn’t think that he could’ve faced society where he would be shamed because he was unable to protect his family from the crime. He was focused on his personal fate after witnessing his wife with the bandit, and he felt that was the honorable thing to do. Therefore, one can see that self-esteem comes back and plays a role in this testimony as well.
Lastly, the woodcutter, comes to reality to mention that he was a witness of the crime. So now that we have a witness, the audience can probably get the full truth and know which story was true. However, his story is slightly different than the others. He blames the woman for the death of the man because she started the fight. From this story the woman is seen in a different light from both men and the audience. The men are trying to prove their manhood more than anything, to boost their self-esteem. The woodcutter refused to tell his story because he didn’t want his flaw to be
known.
Overall, after viewing the films and reading the two short stories, man is seen as selfish, dishonest, and a coward to themselves. We are afraid to see ourselves for who we truly are. Just from this, one can conclude that people will say anything in order to hide the truth if they have some part of it in any way. The lack of honesty to ourselves or to other humans is seen in this film through each character’s testimony because they can’t speak about themselves without exaggeration and lies. There is a plot twist that occurs at the end that I feel is put there to restore faith and the true reality of characters. However, there is an underlying message in the film and stories, which consist of rape and the law, focusing on how rape is handled with the law and those who are a part of the crime.