1. Why do you think Toyo-o continues to be involved with Manago even after he suspects that she is a demon of some sort?
2. Why do you think people (both in the 18th century, when Akinari was writing, and in our own day) are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural?
3. Does “Bewitched” have anything to teach its readers? If so, what? What is Akinari’s message in this text?
4. The text describes Manago as”bewitchingly voluptuous.” What does Akinari’s representation of Manago tell us about feminine beauty?
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I think the first reason for Toyo-o’s infatuation with Manago is her beautiful appearance as described a lot in the text. Her voice is “rich as the sound of rolling jewels”. “The way she wore her hair, her colorful robe, the perfume she exuded made her bewitchingly voluptuous”. Even though he begins to doubt her background, he falls in love with her again and again because of her beauty.
The second reason is that Manago can always offers a great reasonable explanation for herself to win Toyo-o’s trust. She use the evidence such as her shadow shows clearly. She lies to him that she asks an old man to “reduce the house to its hideous state”, which sounds strange but not totally impossible. Her words and her sincere attitude make her innocent.
The last reason Toyo-o’s own problems. He is weak and can be easily deceived. He believes every words from a stranger and never check the reliability. And he is not firm enough to refuse Manago’s request when he is at her sister’s home.
The main reason why people are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural could be because of how our mind works. For starters, these stories are more than just entertainment but also are imaginative. It stretches our imagination to think of something outside of what we are accustomed to. People may have come to realize that the world may not be all that it seems, that there’s many unanswered questions for certain phenomenons that occur throughout the world that couldn’t be answered. This idea gave birth to logical and scientific thinking. Thus different philosophers and scientists comes into play to explain why things work the way they do.
Supernatural tales or ghost stories possess traditional beliefs that have been passed down generations upon generations. One might say it is silly to believe in these things but I believe it goes back to how we interpret the world. Much like in Psychology there’s the Rorschach inkblot test, people interpret it in different ways. The world and how we view it works the same way. Our mind gives meaning to nature to make sense of it. Just as how in ancient times one of the first inkblot test was looking up at the night skies and interpreting it. An example of this would be back in Ancient Greece where they connected the stars (constellations) that formed recognizable shapes of mythical creatures well known at those times from Greek mythologies. Every culture has their own interpretation of natural phenomenons. In the 18th century, Akinari in his stories expressed the Japanese point-of-view, their own interpretation of natural occurrences.
I believe that Toyo-o continued to be involved with Manago even though he suspected that she was a devil because he was infatuated with her beauty. Her beauty was what originally had him hooked. She was also able to deceive him with her words. She made him believe that she was not a devil by saying how she was walking in broad daylight amongst a big crowd and how her shadow shows, which are reasons to believe that she is not a devil. She makes Toyo-o and his sister and brother in law believe that she really loves Toyo-o by saying that she was looking for him and praying to the gods to find him. Her charm and good looks is what Toyo o falls for, however he is also very child like. In the beginning of the story, his family considered him to be like a child. They did not believe he was responsible nor could he fend for himself. He was easily manipulated by Manago, which is why he continued to have a relationship with her despite his suspicion. He is like a child in that sense, since like children he was easily fooled by Manago.
Well said , but I agree he was so an enamored that he didn’t see what was right in front of him. Toyo-o wasn’t denying that she was a demon monster, but he failed to her flaws even thought there were a couple as the were noticeable in her presentation of herself, and Toyo-o himself described her. Yet Toto-o was also very gullible which was one of his main drawbacks that did not assist in his development as a character.
“Bewitched” tells a story about a young, undisciplined man who lusts after a girl who ends up being a serpent. I believe this story teaches a lesson regarding the importance of masculinity. For Japanese people in the 18th century, the cultural expectation for men was to be “rugged” like Taro and to take responsibility. Toyo-o, on the other hand, represented everything that the Japanese man was not supposed to be, and suffers consequences because of his lack of discipline and rational thinking. Not only did he disgrace his family by refusing to work for his father’s fishing business, he showed the absence of his own principles by choosing to pursue Manago even after realizing she had supernatural powers.
As we discussed in class, Toyo-o’s involvement with Manago was more than just attraction. Toyo-o’s home life left a lot to be desired in terms of support, encouragement, and love from his family. He was made to feel like an outcast for his personality and interests and labeled as a burden of which they couldn’t be rid of. When Toyo-o meets Manago she personifies everything he wants to escape to. Even before she introduces herself, Toyo-o transposes the idea of her being a woman from Kyoto as if her beauty and composure could only come from this place he’s built up in his mind. This fascination supersedes his initial suspicion of never having heard of her before in this small, close-knit community. Moments like this echo over the course of the story until an elder male outsider opens his eyes to the demon in front of him. What is the significance that the only person able to pull Toyo-o from his enchantment was this male elder?
In this text “Bewitched” has a lot of important things to tell and teach its readers about the the Japanese cultures back in 18th century. As the the text begins, Akinari revealed the family traditions and values of Japanese men and women. Oya no Takesuke a fisherman with his two sons and daughter. The elder son was “honest” and “ rugged” who’s committed to his family business as a fisherman. Akinari described the elder as honest and tough implies that the younger brother Toyo-on will be the complete opposite of his older brother. however, Toyo-o was described as the bad boy in the family who was irresponsible and brought conflicts to his parents and was later deceived by a Demond which appeared as a beautiful women. Toyo-o appeared to be a young man in his 20s and he was easy to be convinced. The story then escalated after he met Manago’s and falling in love with her because he was infuriated by her beauty. As the reader get in depth with story, Toyo-o was manipulated by the “Demond” Manago when she gifted him a sword that was stolen and he was put in jail for 100. Later, she convinced him that she wasn’t a Demond because she walked during the daylight “ when I walk against the sun my shadow shows clearly”. The Text “Bewitched” clearly teaches the reader that disobeying and and going against family traditions and values will definitely suffer the consequences. In this case, Toyo-o was irresponsible and did unpleasant actions that brought problems to his conservative family and later learned from his actions suffered from the consequences.
I think Toyo-o continues to be involved with Manago even after he suspects that she is a demon of some sort because he lacked the experience in the field of love. In my opinion, this lack of experience interacting with women was the main player in his actions toward Manago. Therefore, the encounter with Manago was probably the first time he fell in love. Because of this, when he was infatuated by Manago’s looks, he was easily swayed by her beauty alone, despite the big red flag on Manago’s head saying “I’m a demon,” and even after the incident with the samurais. Since he did not know any better, he continued to get involved with Manago because he wanted to believe that she is good and that she is probably telling the truth, while being blinded by her beauty and the sense of false love.
Why do you think people (both in the 18th century, when Akinari was writing, and in our own day) are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural?
In my opinion, the reason that people both in the 18th century and in our current day are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural is because it takes you far away from just your everyday life and it lets you dive deeper into your imagination. At the same time, it gives you a new sense of a different reality and you can escape for a little while from the everyday hassles of your life and imagine what would happen if these stories were actually true. Also, I think it raises a curiosity and a possibility that there may be more out there than what we see at face value. The idea of the unknown may be scary to some people, but for others it gives them a sense that there’s more to life than what we have learned. People may also want to believe in these stories because it assures them that their is an afterlife and those they have lost aren’t gone forever, but in another dimension.
Why do you think people (both in the 18th century, when Akinari was writing, and in our own day) are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural?
The attraction or idea of ghosts and the supernatural being real has been drawing the attention of people for centuries. In today’s world we can commonly see this is horror movies. Many people love horror movies involving ghosts seeking some kind of thrill. Some people enjoy being scared or frightened even if it’s not by a human being l. I think people enjoy the idea of their potentially being something greater than what is on Earth. The idea of ghosts and the supernatural is not something you see everyday. I even myself was interested in the text. I felt as the text progressed the spookier it had gotten eventually unveiling the demon and unveiling its true identity at the play progressed. The initial point where I gained more interest and caught attention was when lightening struck as they searched the home and the demon vanished. This is when I myself analyzed this story may have to do with supernatural antics. I think it’s just the idea maybe that we just don’t see this kind of stuff everyday like a demon which may cause us to become more interested in something other than the norm.
We often find ourselves fantasize about the unknown, the supernatural kind of stuff. I personally think what causes it is our basic instinct of curiosity as human beings. Especially during the time when “Bewitched” was written, people knew so little about this world through the lens of science. Hence, people tend to apply supernatural elements to explain the things that simply cannot be comprehended.
I think the main takeaways from the story is to “not judge the book by its cover.” Toyo-o blindly gets attached to Manago mostly because of her beautiful appearance, though there are moments he suspected she was a demon. This idea kind of relates to the “halo effect,” which one often judges an attractive person with biased opinions.
Both people of the 18th century, the time of Akinari’s writing and nowadays are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural for it reveals a world that is distinguished from ours. Reality is governance by the law of physics, where every event and motion can be calculated in some way or forms. The world of supernatural introduces a world that greatly differs from ours, a world where certain events cannot be explained using natural laws. Humans have always shown interest in the unknown, it’s the discovery and unraveling of such unknown that brings us such thrill and excitement. Being human, we tend to fascinate ourselves into the position of a character in a work, it is such fascination that brings forth the creation of modern entertainment where imagination is put into visual motion. Akinari lived in a period of seclusive isolation, science was non-existence during that time of Japan. Bewitched was written in an attempt to defy the ordinary world and introduce a world where imagination can run wild.
I think we, as humans, are attracted to and intrigued by the idea of the supernatural because we know supernatural beings and figures may exist, but we can never be sure. We may find the answer when we die, but as long as we are alive on Earth, we cannot know the definitive truth on the possible existence of the supernatural. Throughout time and even our everyday lives, there have been events that have occurred that we cannot formulate an explanation for. This ranges from the creation of life and the earth to unidentified figures caught on camera to objects moving and shifting in ways that should not be physically possible without an outside force impacting it. As a result, we typically tend to point to the supernatural as explanation for these unusual and paradoxical events.