In a Grove, Akutagawa

“The following statements have been made before the High Police Commissioner by a woodcutter, a traveling priest, a policeman, an old woman, and others concerned.”

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s short story In a Grove presents the mysterious murder of a samurai, told through a series of conflicting testimonies: a woodcutter, a priest, the accused bandit, the samurai’s wife, and even the dead man himself through a medium. Each account contradicts the others, leaving the reader without a definitive truth. Rather than resolving the crime, Akutagawa forces us to confront the ambiguity of perception, memory, and self-interest.

Thematically, the story grapples with subjectivity of truth, human fallibility, and moral responsibility. Each narrator seeks to preserve dignity, shift blame, or justify actions, illustrating how people bend reality to serve their own needs. This aligns with philosophical questions of epistemology—what can we truly know?—and with a proto-existential concern for how individuals construct meaning in the absence of certainty.

Historically, In a Grove reflects early 20th-century Japan, a society negotiating between traditional values and Western modernity. Its fragmented narrative style anticipates modernist experiments in Europe and America, while also foreshadowing postwar skepticism toward authority and absolute truth.

Ultimately, In a Grove is less about “who killed the samurai” than about the impossibility of ever knowing with certainty—making it a timeless meditation on truth, perspective, and human self-deception.

We will be at the Central Library in room 3-20A.