The Wise Old Woman By Uchida

Most all cultures around the world have folktales that teach life lessons and are passed down through generations. The Japanese folktale, “The Wise Old Woman”, retold by Yoshiko Uchida, is a great example of one of those stories. Uchida uses story elements to help identify the theme of the story which helps to understand a larger lesson about life, human nature, or the experience of a specific people and culture. The story opens in a small village located in the western hills of Japan. The villagers there are ruled by a haughty and vicious young ruler who feels that there is no use for old people. Consequently, he makes a decree banishing those in the village who are older than the age of seventy-one to die in the mountains. However, when a

Paragraphs 19-41 contain details that support this. First, in paragraphs 19-27, Lord Higa demands “a box containing one thousand ropes of ash” to spare the village from attack. All the villagers are filled with despair, except for the aged mother whose answer is to “soak ordinary rope in salt water and dry it well. When it is burned, it will hold its shape and there is your rope of ash!” Next, in paragraphs 30-34, Lord Higa sends “a log with small holes that curved and bent seven times” and wants “a single piece of silk thread be threaded through the hole.” The farmer’s mother has a solution: “put some sugar at one end of the hole. Then tie an ant to a piece of silk thread and put it in at the other end. He will weave his way in and out of the curves to get to the sugar and he will take the silk thread with him.” Soon after, in paragraphs 37-41, Lord Higa makes his final demand: “bring me a drum that sounds without being beaten.” For the wise old woman, this seems like the easiest task of all. Her answer is to “make a drum with sides of paper and put a bumblebee inside. As it tries to escape, it will buzz and beat itself against the paper.” All of these quotes support how wise the old woman is in her thoughts. In contrast, all the “wise men” of the village lack wisdom in their actions. They find all of Lord Higa’s demand impossible and fail to act. In paragraph 22, the angry lord calls them “fools.” Then in paragraph 32, the impatient lord refers to them as “and again you are stupid fools.” Eventually, in paragraph 43, the impressed lord now knows that there is one who is “wiser than all my wise men.” Furthermore, when the lord hears the truth about the farmer’s aged mother, in paragraph 45, “at last he realized how much wisdom and knowledge old people possess.” Therefore, the lord abolishes the decree and asks for forgiveness. In