Love Suicide of Amijima free essay sample

Choose one or two character(s), and describe how the ideas affect the ways in which he or she acts, speaks. The ideas of Confucianism and Buddhism are highly conveyed in the play, The Love Suicides of Amijima. Within the play, these two religions both influenced a lot of the characters’ actions and conversations, especially Jihei’s and Koharu’s. Buddhism provided the religious background to these characters and Confucianism, with its emphasis on responsibilities, provided the ethical basis. Confucianism strongly stresses in the fulfillment of responsibilities by the roles in society, whether husband to wife or woman to woman. This particular teaching was the ultimate basis for the plot and conflict in The Love Suicides of Amijima. In this play, the duties as a husband and father and as a woman to another woman are illustrated and strongly affected the characters’ decisions or lack of decisions. The general outline of the story is a love triangle; Jihei, a married man falls in love with a prostitute, Koharu, is unable to â€Å"ransom† her (buy her contract from the owner), and eventually commits suicide together. We will write a custom essay sample on Love Suicide of Amijima or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Jihei’s final decision of death was based on his inability to choose between his obligation as a husband and father to Osan and his children, and his love for Koharu. Making his decision even harder was the nobility both women had towards each other; Koharu agrees to give up her love to save Jihei for Osan and Osan agrees to pawn even her own clothing to pay ransom for Koharu to save Koharu’s life. Unable to have both women, Jihei’s suicide was the only way he could deal with losing one. Without his Confucius sense of obligation to Osan, there would be no predicament and no touching story of a love suicide. Buddhism was the overall veil that all the characters in the play were under. There were many instances where this religion was mentioned to reveal every character’s belief or acknowledgement of it. One instance was when Magoremon and Aunt came to the home and shop of Jihei to ask if Jihei was the person paying for Koharu’s ransom after just ten days from breaking p with her. After Jihei denies, they asked Jihei to a signed oath to prove this to Gozaemon. Jihei proceeded to agree and say, â€Å"If I should lie, I may Bonten and Taishaku above (considered protective deities of the Buddhist Law), and the Four Great Kings (The four Deva kings served under Taishaku and were also protectors of Buddhism) below afflict me! † From this statement, we can see that all these characters regarded Buddhist protectors as figures of great power to punish, otherwise the oath would be meaningless. The actions and words of last scene in the play, Act Three: Scene Three: Amijima, demonstrate a great deal of Confucius ethics and Buddhist beliefs. Jihei and Koharu both chose death because of their Buddhist belief that they will continue in an afterlife together, reborn to live in a less complicated situation than what their life is now. Before actually committing suicide, Jihei and Koharu both did things to try to compensate for the failure in their moral responsibility to Osan. They decided to die in a different place and by a different method so Osan would not be offended when their bodies were found. Jihei does this because of the guilt he has from the neglect of his husbandly duties to her after his death. Koharu does this because of her breaking of the promise she wrote to Osan; promising to spare her husband’s life and end Koharu’s relationship with him. In addition, Jihei and Koharu both cut their hair to symbolize their initiation to becoming a priest and nun meaning to fundamentally relieved them from their obligations to Osan. Both of these acts exemplify their respect for the Confucius teachings of roles and their particular duties. Adjacent to Jihei’s and Koharu’s Confucius accordance is their Buddhist beliefs, which also have propel them to commit the act of placing their bodies away from one another. They both believed that the body was just a vessel for the soul and that the soul would be twined together, regardless of the state of the physical bodies, into the afterlife. On page 205, Jihei says, â€Å"Our bodies are made of earth, water, fire, and wind, and when we die they revert to emptiness. But our souls will not decay, no matter how often reborn. Furthermore, after the death of Koharu, Jihei arranges her body in a manner that Shakyamuni Buddha has chose when he died, to probably help in her salvation in the afterlife. Then to help his own salvation in the afterlife, he says with his last breath, â€Å"Hail Amida Buddha. † All of these acts and words from the characters Jihei and Koharu, especially, demonstrate how Confucius and Buddhist ideas influenced them. Without these ideas in the background and as their moral backbone, there would be no story because there would be no dilemma.