Musuis Story free essay sample

Musui’s Story: A Transition From Isolation to Interaction The varying social interactions between status groups in Katsu Kokichi’s autobiography, Musui’s Story, convey a shift from the hierarchically strict Heian/Kamakura epochs to the more socially open late Tokugawa period. Throughout the work, Katsu illustrates his various dealings and communications with peasants, merchants, artisans and fellow samurai. While in theory a social hierarchy still presided, Musui’s Story dismisses the notion that social groups remained isolated from each other, as in previous Japanese eras, and instead reveals that people of Japan in the late-Tokugawa-era mingled with one another during their lives, regardless of their social status. Considering the demise of the aristocracy that inhibited so much of Heian Japan, the late Tokugawa era fostered the idea that no matter your status or class it remained possible to interact with anyone outside the imperial family. Musui’s Story served as an indicator of transition from status groups that people attain through birth, to class groups that anyone can achieve no matter their ranking upon birth. While better-positioned social groups in society still garnered additional respect, it did not mean that their position in society remained fixed and could not move up or down the social hierarchy due to their actions. Katsu’s work personifies a prime source for understanding that while status group ideals still endured, a clear rift continued forming between the ideals and the reality of Japan at the time when it came to social interactions. The character of Katsu embodied uniqueness, considering his birth to a well to do yet low ranking Samurai family in Edo. His early interactions, especially those that take place after he runs away from home, serve to illustrate the spreading chasm between social ideals and social realities. For example, Katsu received lodging from a samurai, and an offer of a spot in their household even though on his first runaway his dress looked quite similar to that of a beggar (Katsu 30-31). The interaction would seem shocking on its own, if not for Katsu’s introduction to the samurai commencing through his laughter at their pathetic attempts to ride horses which, if following samurai ideals, could have led to Katsu’s death due to disrespecting the samurai who inhibited the highest status of the social order besides the imperial family. Katsu’s journey during his first attempt at running away reveal how various groups of people, no matter their status or class, interact with a person who identifies himself as a beggar, tradesmen, or a person on a religious pilgrimage. Whether that means getting ripped off by tradesmen, having shelter provided by priests and beggars, or receiving alms from gamblers and a man enjoying a brothel (Katsu 24, 25-29, 32, 34-35, 37). Yet, Katsu relied on his status to help him out of sticky situations from time to time as well. For example, during the introduction to the pleasure district in Edo, Katsu steals about 200 ryo, and even though it becomes clear that he committed the crime, Katsu remains innocent and goes unpunished thanks to his role as future family heir (Katsu 44-46). Katsu does not begin to represent the ideals of the samurai until his adult years. His epiphany came when an old man bequeathed a few nuggets of wisdom on Katsu, exemplified by his words, â€Å"People are wont to repay a good deed with ingratitude. Well, why don’t you be different and try returning a good deed for every act of ill will? † (Katsu 73). A key aspect of Katsu’s life during his adult years becomes his perpetual debt and lack of money. The ways through which Katsu goes about abolishing his debts and earning a living do not always represent the samurai ideals. Katsu begins to dabble in selling swords, as well as learning how to do shadow lotteries, deeds clearly at odds with samurai ideals, yet they represent the stark reality of Katsu’s monetary situation (Katsu 74, 84). Katsu evolves into a unique figure because, while he does not always follow samurai ideals, he does realize the weight his status holds, and he does not shy away from using it to acquire privileges that he would not receive otherwise. Because of his social standing and his benevolent nature, even Katsu’s friends come to his aid with money, as they create a savings association and place Katsu as the head without even having to put in an initial payment (Katsu 95). Another example would include an incident near the end of the autobiography, where Katsu goes out of his way to bail out his landlord by tricking the villagers that he would use his samurai status to shame them in the eyes of the Osaka magistrate (Katsu 129-142). Essentially, Katsu gains a mastery of using his samurai ideals to help his maligned reality, and through it he can call in favors, rely on his friends for monetary support, and use his status to awe members of society. While ongoing change became the status quo in late-Tokugawa era Japan the ideals of the samurai—and the respect they receive—endured. And, because samurai could still fall back on the prestige their class represented, members of society still held them in awe. Even while partaking in illegal activities, such as sword-dealing, Katsu receives such a great amount of respect that his losses remain meager, as referenced by the quote, â€Å"At the auction market, if I guessed wrong and put in a written bid of fifteen silver monme for something worth only three monme, the auctioneer would take out my slip of paper from under the straw and say, â€Å"For Katsu-sama, it’s three and a half monme,† and let me off with a loss of only half a monme† (Katsu 96). Even though Katsu’s younger life did not illustrate the samurai ideals that he would later come to rely on, that did not stop him from instilling awe in people, as illustrated by Katsu’s interaction with Master Danno: â€Å"Whether it concerned a dispute between rival schools, disagreements between fellow students, or initiations into secret techniques, I was the one who was usually called in. For that matter Master Danno made a point of consulting me about initiations at his school. And not one person ever contested my decisions† (Katsu 98). Yet, not everyone held the samurai in awe, as shown by the actions of Hyogo, a Shinto priest. Hyogo became drunk and embarrassed himself and Katsu, and later on, his nephew, Otake Gentaro, also refuses to respect Katsu or his status, and Katsu threatens to kill him for dishonoring him. As Katsu would state, â€Å"In my opinion Hyogo was a thoroughly bad sort. I severed all connections with the association. The other members that I’d persuaded to join left, too, and I heard that the whole thing fell apart† (Katsu 79). When it comes to the ideals that status groups championed in the late-Tokugawa era, the reality actually matched it on a greater level than previous eras. One ideal followed by Katsu included this excerpt in the textbook, â€Å"Although merchant and samurai held many values in common, it was a mark of samurai pride to regard financial considerations with contempt† (Schirokauer 151). Katsu seemed to follow this quite strictly as he never hoarded money—or made a point to make it—until he teetered on financial ruin, which spurred him to rely on his status and his previous good deeds to amass the ryos necessary to pay off his debts. In addition, the text also exposes that â€Å"Most (samurai) were now occupied more with civil than with military affairs† (Schirokauer 150). Katsu’s life represented this perfectly, considering that, throughout his autobiography, mentions of him going off to war did not appear, and emphasis instead fell on stories of him helping out his landlords, heading saving associations and dealing swords to make quick money. The universal samurai ideals known as bushido, which imparted ideals such as frugality, loyalty, honor to the death, and possessing a mastery of martial arts, did not quite evoke the same adherence as they did in previous eras, or at least when reading Musui’s Story. Katsu’s idea of frugality only came when he had no more money to spend because he had squandered most—if not all of it—in the pleasure district, and for Katsu, loyalty represented a difficult ideal to follow when he lacked loyalty to his own family, considering that he ran away from them twice. Musui’s Story personifies a detailed glimpse into the life of a samurai in the late-Tokugawa era, and how through social interactions we can see how reality and ideals became disjointed. Ideals and reality remained connected, but the main point—that ideals did not always influence how events and interactions took place in reality because, with everyone interacting with each other freely it did not seem logical to base their entire lives on ideals championed hundreds of years before in a different era—demonstrated an increasing distance between ideals and reality. The reality of the society portrayed through Musui’s Story exemplifies one that did not have as much concern with status groups, and therefore ideals, of those groups. With the rise of class groups that people could rise into, reality became much more focused on social interactions, rather than merely seclusion based on ideals that still held weight, but lacked the importance of having social interaction with all classes. Bibliography Katsu, Kokichi. Musuis Story: the Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1988. Print. Schirokauer, Conrad, David Lurie, and Suzanne Marie. Gay. A Brief History of Japanese Civilization. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006. Print.