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Literary Analysis Of Love Suicides At Amijima

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Melanie St. Angelo Professor Dawn Joyce LIT 2120: Literary Analysis 2 February 2017 The Love Suicides at Amijima: Influence to Japanese Society In the early 1700s, Chikamatsu deviated from the conventional historical dramas, and began to captivate and influence audiences with unorthodox puppet plays that were based on actual, recent events. One of Chikamatsu’s most popular examples, The Love Suicides at Amijima, unraveled a local love-suicide story between a married paper merchant, whom was having an affair with a prostitute. He is often referred as the Japanese Shakespeare. Audiences were drawn to the scandalous nature of these plays, which had never been portrayed in the puppet theater. The Love Suicides at Amijima was overwhelmingly popular …show more content…

This type of work capitalized on newsworthy events that highlighted modern conflicts of society relevant to the period it was written. Conflicts or unaccepted norms that exist within this work include social and moral obligational duties to family, contribution to prostitution, and highlights the daily struggles of the commoner to provide for their family financially. In addition to the new genre this play created, the subject matter of love-suicide was introduced to the puppet theater. Love-suicide plots had been interpreted on the kabuki stage for at least twenty years prior to this, but The Love Suicides at Amijima is responsible for introducing this subject matter to the more conservative puppet theater (Brownstein 7).This new genre would be come to known as sewamono in …show more content…

Prior to the rise of puppet theater, the Noh theater was most seemingly popular and attended by the elite classes. This stereotyped the Noh theater as “high-class”. In this theater, any racy or provocative subjects were limited due to censorship and/or prohibitions, such as banning women and men from the stage due to the male audience appeal. Now that the popularity shifted to the puppet theater, new restrictions were imposed. Authorities claimed there was a rise of real love-suicides occurring shortly after the play’s debut (Puchner 48). This could be due to the stressors of conflict between moral and social obligations too difficult for society to deal with. The realistic nature of these plays most likely connected to audiences emotionally and made these situations appear more common among society than they had previously been portrayed. Relating their emotions and situations to those portrayed in the play, could lead them to believe there is no other option than to commit suicide as did the characters in the play. Whatever contributing factors to actual real love-suicides may be, “love suicide” plays were eventually banned by the Japanese government. This ban would change the way theater was portrayed in

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