Rashomon

The protagonist of Rashōmon is a former servant of a samurai household who was recently let go due to Kyoto’s overall “decline.” The former servant is never given a name and readers are given very limited information about him. He wears a blue kimono, carries a sword with a bare hilt, and has a large pimple on his right cheek that he repeatedly fusses with throughout the story.

The servant is representative of all three major themes of the story. His dire circumstances are a direct result and reflection of Japanese Socioeconomics and Post-Feudal Poverty that could be seen in Akutagawa’s era, even though the story takes place long before the Meiji and Taisho Periods. He struggles with Morality and Moral Corruption as he searches for a Means of Survival that does not clash with his inner ideas of “right” and “wrong,” torn between starvation and a life of crime. Akutagawa uses modernist writing techniques within the framework of a classical setting as he explores the servant’s psychological journey from a man considering death by starvation to a man who remorselessly robs an old woman and disappears into the night.