From trade at rolomail.com Thu Mar 27 06:43:00 2008 From: trade at rolomail.com (Trading Department) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:43:00 -0400 Subject: [Japanophiles] Suicidal Honor Message-ID: <580FF525-8206-4B26-9F50-38BF5BBBDBB6@rolomail.com> Suicidal Honor General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki On September 13, 1912, the day of Emperor Meiji's funeral, General Nogi Maresuke committed ritual suicide by seppuku (disembowelment). It was an act of delayed atonement that paid a debt of honor incurred thirty-five years earlier. The revered military hero's wife joined in his act of junshi ("following one's lord into death"). The violence of their double suicide shocked the nation. What had impelled the general and his wife, on the threshold of a new era, to resort so drastically, so dramatically, to this forbidden, anachronistic practice? The nation was divided. There were those who saw the suicides as a heroic affirmation of the samurai code; others found them a cause for embarrassment, a sign that Japan had not yet crossed the cultural line separating tradition from modernity. Sneak a free peak at Chapter 1: http://www.rolomail.com/cgi-bin/sanadd.pl?171 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: