by Tien Dang

The story is such a great piece of literature that upon reading it I find so many thoughts and ideas for discussion running through my head. However, the one topic that I choose to discuss will be, as the underlying theme of the story is promiscuity, can the cause justify the effect?

The old woman first told the story of her libertine younger years by an account of her affair with a samurai when she was 11, an affair which devastated her, had her family horribly shaken and ended the samurai’s life. Following the event are numerous stories of her having affairs with other man. However, Sakaiku seems to draw the audience’s attention to the woman’s harsh life situations with few or even no choice for her at all. First she was born into a high class family, then lost her privilege and her life just spiraled downwards, to the most despised occupations and lowest social status, with little to no financial or personal security to herself.

It can easily be said that her harsh life situations, as aforementioned, ensnare her into sleeping with so many men for a living, and even for her own sensuous self. However, upon closer inspection I find that her promiscuous youth, though could understandably be initiated first by ignorance and inexperience, is ultimately her own choice.

The woman even admitted to her overindulgent lifestyle when she just went whenever the flow takes her. Over the course of the story, she voluntarily slept with ten thousand men, as she claimed, to satiate her amorous and sensuous self.

Hence, I don’t find the justification for the woman’s promiscuity as a product of the environment very convincing, because ten thousand men are simply to many to blame the vicissitudes of life.

The cause doesn’t justify the effect, apparently, in this case.