Stephen Deng response to “Bewitched” by Ueda Akinari (text to self)

The short story “Bewitched” by Ueda Akinari tells the sotry of a man who falls in love with a devil in the form of a woman. The story begins with a summary of the family which is when our main character Toyo-o is introduced. he is described as ” a handsome youth with a. predilection for learning and cultural pursuits, typical of life in Kyoto, the nations capital”. The story then progresses to a sudden rainstorm to which our main character has found himself in the center of. After entering an old Fishermans home and steeling for a little bit our antagonist enters the picture who goes by the name “Manago” alone with her maid “Maroya”. He quickly falls for her and gives her his umbrella when she leaves and say that he will pick it up another day. later that night he has a dream that upon entering her home he is treated to food and wine and after getting drunk he lays down beside her and begins to chat to which his dream ends. But after searching all morning and into the afternoon he if left disappointed until he spots Maroya coming towards him he asks her to take him to Managos home to get his umbrella. Reaching the house Toyo-o ” saw that the front gate and the house were huge indeed. The shutters and bamboo blind were just as impressive as he imagined in his dream.”. Meaning everything he dreamed was there. Manago comes out and offers Toyo-o food and wine just like he imagined. After eating and drinking Manago says to Toyo-o to marry her. After saying that he cannot due to the fact that he is still reliant on his parents and older brother. She then gives him. a sword that belonged to her husband. Later we find out that the sword is really one of the many offerings to the gods tat were stolen. After being arrested he convinces the samurai to bring his to the house only to find it the complete opposite of what it looked like the first time he went there this time its old and dilapidated. in addition he learns that the names that she has given are all false there has been nobody living in the home for years now. upon entering the home they see what they believe is a girl but when they approach her a loud clap of thunder shocks them the she is gone. Then they saw all of the stolen goods. later on he is able to get rid of Manago but it takes the form of another girl named Tomiko. they are eventually able to kill both the serpent and unfortunately the girl as well. this story relates to a past experience I have had. I believe the moral of the story is its easy to get into negative things but hard to get out. over the last year I have fallen in to collecting musical albums from my favorite artists. this would turn out to be a bad thing because I just started to buy one album every month or several months in-between. however has new artists emerged I began to like them and would buy whatever was new. It was very hard to get rid of and at times it seemed like I had gotten over it but due to the sudden emergence of money around holidays I would spend all of my money on them much like how Toyo-o was convinced to take Manago back. There were times in the school year where I sacrificed my weekly budget for food for albums. it went on to the point where I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on albums alone. Eventually I was able to stop for a month or two controlling my desires by not looking at the new music videos released by the artists but a sudden emergence of a new artists restarted my album buying. by this time it was about three fourths through the school year and over a thousand dollars on albums alone. After the school year ended I still didn’t stop buying albums. It was only when our family trip to Asia when my thirst was satisfied. my anger for albums were satisfied but at an extreme costs, the way I ended me desire to buy albums was to buy all of them from every artist that I liked. After spending an absurd amount of money it was all over much like the ending of the story where the serpent and the girl died. another moral of the story I believe is that if it’s too good to be true it probably is. An experience that I had in the past was a scam in which I unknowingly participated in. This scam also took place in Asia. When I went shopping I found a few items of clothing that I liked and I asked the shop owner how much it was in English. She then took out a calculator and gave me an absurd price but then lowered it to much lower then I bought it. But after doing some research I found out it was much less then I bought it for the that one of the common scams of china is for them to start off with an absurd price and jack it down but a price which will overcharges you even more so if you are caught speaking English. From these experiences I learned the valuable lessons of if its too good to be true it probably is and its easy to be caught up in negative things but hard to get out.