Rashomon and the Taishô Period

Rashomon is a film directed by Akira Kurosawa which was based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story In a Grove. In a Grove is considered as one of the greatest story in Japanese literature. The story talks about the death of a samurai and it consists of several testimonies by witnesses including the samurai himself. While reading these testimonies one would notice how they contradict each others statement. This leaves us with the question regarding "truth". What makes the statements "true". Is the "truth" was what they had seen or is it how they interpreted what they had saw? What makes the testimonies credible. The possibility of manipulating the "truth" lies within how they want to perceive a certain kind of truth. Sometimes it also depends on the person who is telling the "truth" whether it is credible or simply acceptable. In order to understand the story, there is a need to look at the background of the author.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was a Japanese writer active in Taishō period of Japan. He is considered as the "Father of the Japanese short story". He is also noted for his detailed stories that explore the darker side of human nature. This is probably because of the way of how his life had led.

The Taishō period was during the reign of the Taishō emperor. When the health of the emperor became weak, this prompted the shift in political power from the old oligarchic group of elder statesmen to the Diet of Japan and the democratic parties. This era is considered the time of the liberal movement known as the "Taishō democracy" in Japan. You can read more about this here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XyxVDuo84R4C&pg=PR5&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA1,M1
http://books.google.com/books?id=CAEl8uryKK0C&pg=PR9&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA27,M1
http://books.google.com/books?id=M6-2y4LlMW8C&pg=PR7&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA3,M1
http://books.google.com/books?id=0IxTMRmBB50C&printsec=frontcover#PPR7,M1

According to japansociety.org, "Taishô is often is shorthand in discussions of Japanese culture and history for a period of democracy and flourishing popular culture that began in the 1910s and lasted until around 1930. And that during this era, after the Meiji reforms and before military factions began to exert heavy power over politics and culture, political parties had the balance of power, and mass audience magazines, recorded music, and films propelled a cultural exuberance... What differed in the Taisho period was a sense of "contemporaneity," that is, a sense that Japanese writers could be at the forefront of the latest developments in the literature and culture of the world. Akutagawa Ryunosuke, whose story "In a Grove"... was among the greatest of Taishô modernists." "Taishô period modernist literature was consciously part of a more global modernist literary movement, and included numerous experimental styles and almost revolutionary themes common to modernist literature."