Yanagita Kunio had a method with his folktales and legends that made him stand out. His search for the origins of Japan’s unique culture led to him being the first, and many would agree, best folklorist, of the Meiji Period. Yanagita’s ability to make a lore, passed on by an informant, increasingly literary made his legends of Tōno distinguishable. This approach of evoking powerful emotions such as fear through a literary standpoint can have an impact on the reader by producing a physical emotion that would normally be lost through a handed-down verbal story. The most common themes that I witnessed in The Legends of Tōno that bring to mind emotion are spirts or the concealed world, feminism, the yamabito, death, and the natural world.
In most …show more content…
This attention grabbing characteristic can be seen on episode 6 of The Legends of Tōno when the daughter of a choja in the village of Aozasa was kidnapped. This recurring matter of kidnapping or disappearance in mysterious ways evokes two emotions for me, the first, being that of fear. This emotion primarily comes from the fact that even a wealthy farmer’s daughter is not safe. The fear was reinforced by the hunter a number of years later as he came across the woman alone in the mountains. Typically, hunters are stereotyped to be tough and not fearful, but as he came across the woman in the legend, he was frightened and about to shoot his gun. Secondly, an emotion of the sense of inequality arises from the feminist perspective when discussing these legends. Women are portrayed as weak and fragile in this episode as well as most of the other legends, as it’s usually women or children who get kidnapped. The woman in this episode was know by her father and never is given a name, emphasizing this patriarchal society. This can be seen specifically during the Meiji period in Japan, as it was a time that had the concept of “Good wife, wise mother” and the ideology that the mother was the center of the household which implied cooking …show more content…
In Japan there seems to be the notion that the vastness of these mountains holds many evil spirits or unexpected things. In episode 7 the daughter of a peasant from Kamigo village goes to the mountains to collect some chestnuts and never returned. Similarly, to episode 6, she was carried off by a dreadful man and held captive around the base of Mt. Goyo. This narrative reflects Japanese ideas of nature as well as fortifies the idea that women are portrayed inferior through their inability to escape. The ideas of nature or the natural world in Japanese literature are connected to the concealed world. Many spirts and unhuman entities seem to live in the mountains but there is a connection through the natural world by the yamabito. The yamabito are mysteriously characterized mountain man that people are afraid of because of their desire to be one with the natural world and kami. People being afraid of the mountain man just goes to show that anything associated with the mountains are feared. The woman in the episode goes on to describe how the man that took her appeared as an ordinary person but the color of his eyes are threatening. Again, this “man” seems to impregnate her with many children that don’t resemble him or aren’t his, that end up getting eaten or killed. To me these unhuman husbands are a class of supernatural spirits or monsters, something like a
In most …show more content…
This attention grabbing characteristic can be seen on episode 6 of The Legends of Tōno when the daughter of a choja in the village of Aozasa was kidnapped. This recurring matter of kidnapping or disappearance in mysterious ways evokes two emotions for me, the first, being that of fear. This emotion primarily comes from the fact that even a wealthy farmer’s daughter is not safe. The fear was reinforced by the hunter a number of years later as he came across the woman alone in the mountains. Typically, hunters are stereotyped to be tough and not fearful, but as he came across the woman in the legend, he was frightened and about to shoot his gun. Secondly, an emotion of the sense of inequality arises from the feminist perspective when discussing these legends. Women are portrayed as weak and fragile in this episode as well as most of the other legends, as it’s usually women or children who get kidnapped. The woman in this episode was know by her father and never is given a name, emphasizing this patriarchal society. This can be seen specifically during the Meiji period in Japan, as it was a time that had the concept of “Good wife, wise mother” and the ideology that the mother was the center of the household which implied cooking …show more content…
In Japan there seems to be the notion that the vastness of these mountains holds many evil spirits or unexpected things. In episode 7 the daughter of a peasant from Kamigo village goes to the mountains to collect some chestnuts and never returned. Similarly, to episode 6, she was carried off by a dreadful man and held captive around the base of Mt. Goyo. This narrative reflects Japanese ideas of nature as well as fortifies the idea that women are portrayed inferior through their inability to escape. The ideas of nature or the natural world in Japanese literature are connected to the concealed world. Many spirts and unhuman entities seem to live in the mountains but there is a connection through the natural world by the yamabito. The yamabito are mysteriously characterized mountain man that people are afraid of because of their desire to be one with the natural world and kami. People being afraid of the mountain man just goes to show that anything associated with the mountains are feared. The woman in the episode goes on to describe how the man that took her appeared as an ordinary person but the color of his eyes are threatening. Again, this “man” seems to impregnate her with many children that don’t resemble him or aren’t his, that end up getting eaten or killed. To me these unhuman husbands are a class of supernatural spirits or monsters, something like a