Wise Old By Yoshiko Uchida Analysis

In the folktale The Wise Old Woman , retold by Yoshiko Uchida, the readers experience a tragedy that comes upon a village while learning the true meaning of respect and appreciation. When the village is about to be overthrown there is only one way to save the village, except all of the people who hold knowledge and wisdom have died in mountains, alone and cold because of the young lords wishes. Their village will soon be under attack, unless someone has the knowledge they need to overcome the challenges Lord Higa has given them.

In this folktale the theme of the story helps you understand a larger lesson about life because you learn how much appreciation and respect can mean. In paragraph 2 Yoshiko Uchida restates, “”I have no use for old people in my village..They are neither useful nor able to work for a living. I therefore decree that anyone over seventy-one must be banished from the village and left in the mountains to die.”” This quote shows that the young lord of this village does not believe in respecting the elderly. He believes that the elderly have no use because they cannot work the way they used to work and they might need help with supporting themselves. The elderly have so many experiences …show more content…
The mother of the young villager had solved the thought to be impossible to all the others in the village. The mother had solved all three of the problems Lord Higa had given them within just hearing the problem. The young lord realized what he did was a mistake and asked for forgiveness because without having respect for the old, we would not have any knowledge or mistakes or success in the past. They wisdom and knowledge of the old helped saved the village and if the young farmer hadn’t broken the law their village would be under an even more cruel lords