BigPappaBilal's Essay on Honor in Harakiri and Lord Tadanao

Hakeem Bilal
Honors World Lit
January 1, 2005
Dr. McMahon

The concept of honor in both the movie Harakiri and in the reading “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao”, seem to be based on the same elements. It appears that each member in ancient Japanese society has some basic sense of honor. They appear more disciplined than any other modern-day social citizen I can recognize. Even the malicious people, as shown in Harakiri, know how to uphold principles of honor, within certain limitations. How can honor be defined?

Honor is defined by leadervalues.com to be “a state of being or state of character, that people possess by living up to the complex set of all the values that make up the public moral code. Honor includes: integrity, courage, loyalty, respect, selfless-service, and duty. Honor demands adherence to a public moral code, not protection of a reputation.” To be honorable, a man determines what he must do and what he must not do. Honorable actions are inextricably bound up with the ability to achieve a desired result, the courage to undertake it and the constancy to see it through. There is honor in a man who accepts, as a duty, the responsibility of rendering necessary and valuable service to his own people and the vital interests of his country, and by so doing puts them above his own self-interests. It is the highest aspect of the code of the gentleman and is present only in high civilizations. A man or a nation without heroes has no honor.

In Harakiri, the viewer can consider Hamshiro and Motome to be heroes, complete with honor keeping their families before anything else. In the movie, we find out that Hamshiro Tsegumo came to the house of Iyi to commit seppuku (suicide) but really to avenge his son-in-law and keep a promise of an old friend by dishonoring the house of Iyi. At first, it didn’t appear to us that those were his intentions, because he showed himself to be a ronin (master less samurai) wanting to commit seppuku out of poverty. The clan elder of the house, Kageyu Seito, decides to grant his wish and let him commit suicide. Tsegumo gets to name his second, the person who will chop off his head to confirm his death. He names Hikokuru Omodaka, the same person who cut off his son’s head off when he felt satisfied. The elder tells him that Omodaka called in sick, so he names two other people, who are also on sick leave. The three people happen to be ones who had major roles in Motome’s death, which was very dishonorable. They made Motome commit seppuku with bamboo blades, which basically couldn’t cut a thing. They made him suffer for minutes before his second (Omodaka) finally cut his head off. All these things were disgraces to Motome and Tsegumo, and it also showed the powerful, but sadistic side of Seito. These dishonorable characters in the movie still had some sense of what it meant to be honorable; they just didn’t want people coming to their steps faking to commit seppuku, like Motome did. Once Tsegumo finds the three men who tortured his son-in-law, he precedes to fight like a possessed warrior on the three, taking the ponytails of the samurai to get revenge. A samurai’s ponytail is like his heart; once it is gone, he has nothing else to live for. Once the men who dishonored the samurai name got their hair cut off, they realized what they did was wrong, or couldn’t live with the fact that their hair had been taken. They tried to right their wrongs and make things more honorable by committing suicide themselves, having their families call in sick to Seito. Before they executed Tsegumo, he showed them that he made things right and put the hair of each of the men on the floor in front of him. This outraged Seito, eventually making him have all his men attack Tsegumo. After a long battle, where Tsegumo punished half of the warriors, he finally goes down. Obviously, actions can be better than words in this case-scenario.

The two main characters, Tsegumo and Motome, found honor not by following every rule of the samurai code, but finding what was more important, their families. Motome knew that his samurai sword was like his soul, but what made him more honorable to the reader was the fact that he pawned his sword for cash to support his family in need. Motome went through the traditional definition of honor to help his family. Tsegumo, went past the traditional definition of honor do what was right, he not only brought honor to his name, but kept his promise to his longtime deceased friend, Jinnai. The viewer feels the same for Motome and Tsegumo and has no regrets on what they did. They can deduct what was right for that situation, because they would do it themselves.

Another example of a story with a question of honor is “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao.” In the story we see a Lord who has been good at things all his life. Lord Tadanao has done nothing but win in everything he has ever competed in. This leads him to believe that he is, in a distinct way, “invincible.” He holds large competitions in just about everything anyone would think of with only the top competitors. But one day after a duel tournament, he listens in on two of his competitors that were in his garden. Not realizing that he is overhearing, they discuss that day’s match and how they deliberately lost after a firm amount of time, not wanting to humiliate Lord Tadanao. Now Lord Tadanao becomes surprised, and enraged. He then decides to hold another duel match with unprotected spear blades. Still, the men intentionally lose, hoping that it will satisfy their Lord. Lord Tadanao is furious. From every competition that point on to him, when he won, he believed the other person intentionally lost the match. Where is the honor in this situation? Were the retainers honorable for trying to please their lord? Was Tadanao dishonorable for killing all those people to prove that he was not the best? Yes (for the latter question) because the retainers were only following their code of conduct, and they meant no harm, and Lord Tadanao was a bad leader. He did not fulfill his moral duty and at least apologize for killing all of those people. He just continued to live his life, treating people right and not harming a thing. These later regret this is an injustice to the people, who gave their lives to their Lord and he didn’t even say sorry for his misuse and willful intent. To commit such wrongs without any recourse is very dishonorable. Lord Tadanao lived the rest of his life without punishment, and therefore, without honor.

There were only a few people who retained their honor in these stories. They were Motome and Tsegumo, and the retainers of Lord Tadanao. These honorable people did what was best for their code, and families. Lots of lives were lost, but they died honorably.