Point of View

Point of view is a very interesting aspect of these stories, and is perhaps one of the most creative qualities of each story. Almost every story bears a narrator's presence in one degree or another. In some instances this "presence" is very small and subtle: in "Rashomon" the reader is first told that the servant is waiting for the rain to end; later the narrator qualifies this statement, stating in fact the servant is recently masterless and has no idea what to do. "Hell Screen" is peppered with the narrator's qualifications and backtrackings of various kinds; at many points phrases like "I have heard," "I am told," "The rumor is" make the reader question the veracity of the content being presented. In "Horse Legs" the story starts with the narrator apologizing for the boring mediocrity of the protagonist.

These qualities are the hallmark of the device...