Alex Arciero obligations in conflict Doc theMan's 4-5

Alex Arciero
12/27/04
World Lit 4-5
Dr. McMahon

In Japanese Literature a common theme seems to be the conflict of obligations which the characters are to obey both. The ancient Japanese society was based on a shameless society and honor was the most important thing in life. But sometimes there are other obligations that clash with another and cause severe results. These conflicts are displayed in the movie Harakiri and in the short stories “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” and Patriotism.
The movie Harakiri is based in the year of 1630. In this movie there is a family consisting of Motome Chijiiwa, his wife Miho, and their son Kingo. Motome was a samurai of the House of Geishu. The House of Geishu was making improvements and this was seen as a sign of war by the Shogun and therefore was destroyed. All of the samurai of the House of Geishu became ronin and they are not aloud to take on jobs or careers of regular citizens. Motome was doing one of the things you were aloud to do which was teaching Confucius. One day his wife Miho came down with tuberculoses and later his son Kingo got a serious fever. Their family had very little money and was barely holding on. Motome tried everything to help raise money for a physician to come and look at the two sick ones. He then had a choice of selling one more thing which was his samurai swords. A samurai’s sword is considered his soul and to sell them is like selling your soul and is considered a great dishonor. Here he was faced with a huge conflict of obligation. Was he to dishonor himself as a samurai in selling his swords for the good of his family or just watch his family die? In the end he still chose the right thing in selling his swords because some things like family are still more important than if you have your swords or not. There was another man in this story named Hanshiro Tsugumo. He was to watch over Motome. He is also a great samurai and sells everything he has for the family but he doesn’t sell his swords. He never even considers selling them because honor is too great of a virtue for himself. He doesn’t consider his swords as a possession but as a part of him. When he later finds out everything Motome went through to try and save his family he realizes the importance of things like family over something as simple as a symbol of your honor.
Even though, when Motome sold his swords, he did not raise enough money for his family. This caused him to take more drastic measures in helping his family. Many ronin lately were going to other Houses and threatening to commit harakiri on the steps of the House to dishonor them greatly. But Motome found out that some of these Houses would send the ronin away with some money instead just so they wouldn’t dishonor their house. Motome goes to the House of Iyi and asks to commit harakiri there in hoping they will do the same for him like others before him and give him money. Motome’s actions and intentions on what he is doing are considered a disgrace but he is faced with a difficult decision of obligations of honor versus his family. Though Motome succeeded in getting money by selling his swords this time around he proved unlucky and the House of Iyi made him commit harakiri even with bamboo blades.
The Clan elder of the House of Iyi, Kageyu Saito also had a conflict of obligations. Saito dishonored his whole house and the way of the samurai by the things he did. Saito had chances to do things a certain way but was a very stubborn man. He had many choices. There was a point when he had a chance to just ask Motome why he wanted a couple days of grace and trust him, but he didn’t even ask and tricked him and forced him to commit harakiri. Saito gave Motome no chance of leaving the House alive. Another time he had a choice was when Tsugumo only asked that Saito say that there might have been a possibility that Saito might have had an error in the way he treated with Motome. Saito would not even admit to this simple of a thing. One last conflict was in the end, Tsugumo was killing and injuring many of Saito’s men and Saito has him killed with rifles. The samurai never use rifles. Saito then basically changes what happened and writes a huge lie in his diary of what happened that day. What Saito does is a great dishonor even though no one will ever find out about it. Saito had the chances of simply admitting to a possibility of his wrong doing but was too stuck to the idea of honor and tradition.
In the short story “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” obligations are in conflict also. In this story Lord Tadanao is the Daimyo of Echizen, and has been in control of this since he was 13 years old. Lord Tadanao has always succeeded in everything he has done and has never known failure. One night Lord Tadanao hears two men talking about how they let Lord Tadanao win in a mock fight and that basically his life is fake. Lord Tadanao comes to a conflict of obligations on whether he should ignore these statements made and continue his life or try and discover the truth of these statements. Lord Tadanao tries to find out if this is true by testing many people and seeing if any will resist him. Even when one man does resist him he is just so stubborn and is the best example of an eisegetic reader that he still says that the man who attacked him was an attempt to achieve a noble death. Lord Tadanao became insane and couldn’t trust anyone. This led to a killing rampage for seven years. Then strangely one day the killing stopped and Lord Tadanao went on to become a Buddhist priest. This story was yet another example showing that obligations in conflict can cause the most irrational events.
A conflict in obligations also presents itself in the story Patriotism. This story is about a lieutenant in the Imperial forces by the name of Shinji Takeyama. Shinji was informed that some close friends of his that were part of the Imperial forces had committed mutinous actions. Shinji, because of his high rank, was going to have to kill these men. This is where Shinji’s conflict in obligations aroused. He was faced with either having to kill his closest friends or disobey the Imperial forces, which would bring great shame upon him and the Imperial forces. Shinji took a different approach to his problem though. Unlike the other stories in choosing one or the other, he decided he would do neither. He committed seppuku and therefore it was no longer his problem and he did not have to kill his friends or disobey the Imperial forces. This showed that you don’t always have to decide between the two obligations given to you, though sometimes what you choose in the end can be a great penalty.
When you have a conflict in obligations you are basically stuck in one tight spot and each way you choose to go is going to have its pros and its cons. These situations can be very dangerous also and Japanese Literature likes to use these obligations in conflict. The movie Harakiri and the short stories “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” and Patriotism exemplify this wonderfully. These conflicts that the characters in these stories face are very hard to come up with a decision because of the great costs and usually end up in some sort of death.