The Sign Of The Chrysanthemum Analysis

The Sign of the Chrysanthemum- Katherine Paterson The novel The Sign of the Chrysanthemum by Katherine Paterson is a story a sef boy named Muna who runs away from his manor to the capital city of 12th century feudal Japan, Kyoto, in search of his samurai father. I will discuss the primes of social structure and politics. Katherine Paterson’s The Sign of the Chrysanthemum accurately portrays the Heiji Disturbance and the status of craftsmen and ronins. The Heiji Disturbance is one of the biggest events in the book and as the book progresses the tension level rises between the two clans the Heike and rebels the Genji. Finally the much anticipated Genji rebellion took place in the book, “When he was nearly a week’s journey from the capital,

Although they became more powerful throughout the feudal period, at the beginning, they were considered one of the lowest sub categories in the hierarchy.”

Katherine Paterson’s depiction of Fukuji the swordsmith was accurate in the sense that artisans could earn themselves a title in feudal Japan however the fact that a swordsmith would deny Lord Kiyomori a sword is not accurate because they were still thought as one of the lowest positions in the hierarchy. Feudal Japan had unemployed people much like today, a ronin in the japanese feudal system was a samurai without a lord or master. In the book Katherine Paterson depicts a ronin named Takanobu. Takanobu meets the main character Muna who snuck onto the ship Takanobu is guarding from pirates. The captain of the ship is irritated with the behavior of Takanobu because he has slept and ate food the whole time however in the feudal system he is a higher ranking citizen the captain needs to respect him. According to Legends and

Ronins were simply those samurais who did not belong to any masters, daimyo. There could have been a number of different reasons to how these soldiers became ronins, for example, due to the death of their previous daimyo from losing a battle. Freelance workers in today’s society are often compared to ronins who worked for multiple employers.

Later on in the story Takanobu and Fukuji meet. Takanobu is very rude and disrespectful to Fukuji and yet Fukuji takes the impolite behavior from the ronin. This is partly because the character of Fukuji is a respectful and wise man who understands when he is being baited but he is also considered lower than the ronin in the hierarchy.

Katherine Paterson accurately depicted Takanobu the ronin in the story and his position in the japanese feudal system. Takanobu is a low ranking soldier who works for any employer much like a ronin in that time