Untangling the Spider’s ThreadBy Ms. Rose June V. LocsinBy Ms. Rose June V. Locsin

Akutagawa Ryunosuke

(1 March 1892 – 24 July 1927)

Father of the Japanese short story

Akutagawa Ryunosuke

• born in Kyōbashi, Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku

• named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). 

• When he was seven months old, his mother became insane so he was adopted by his uncle who made him use the Akutagawa family name.

• At school he was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics.

• In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. 

• In 1915 he published Rashōmon, which grew out of the egoism he confronted after experiencing disappointment in love.

• After graduation, he earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint, with overriding themes like the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art. 

• married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka

• had difficulty in reconciling his formal artistic impulses with the introspective mode of his autobiographically-based stories, all of which contributed to the "vague uneasiness" that clouded the last part of his life and ended in his suicide

• Akutagawa's longtime friend, Kikuchi Kan, established the Akutagawa Prize in 1935 to help keep his memory alive. At present the Akutagawa Prize is the literary award most coveted by new writers.

• For the past twenty years Akutagawa has been the author most frequently represented in textbooks for Japanese high school students.

http://www.jlit.net/authors_works/akutagawa_ryunosuke.html

Sources of Inspiration

• “Fable of the Onion” in Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s

novel The Brothers Karamazov

• “The Spider’s Thread” in Karma: A Story of

Early Buddhism, an anthology of five

Buddhist parables published in1895.• Narrative Elements