SOURCE: “Akutagawa's Rashomon: The Development of the Theme Through Setting and Symbolism,” in Literature East and West, Vol. 15, No. 4, December, 1971, pp. 867–71.

In the following essay, Lewis examines the meaning of the story “Rashomon” through its setting and symbolism.

In “Rashomon,” a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the central theme—the destruction of conventional morality—is skillfully conveyed primarily through patterns of imagery and the setting. Through a combination of casual events and psychological justifications, the protagonist shatters the facade of noble principles that would eventually result in his death by his realization that his resurgent doubts about the immorality of stealing in order to live are merely symptomatic of a harsher reality—that principles are only fabrications of social convenience with little validity when measured against survival itself.

The author constructs and embellishes this theme by establishing the setting in conventional symbols and images: it is a cold...