Alyssa Samia
Psychology 260
Fiona Bullock
10 March 2014
Samurai and Seppuku
Suicide, the act of self-murder, is a tragedy that not only destroys the lives of its victims, but it leaves relatives and friends of the victim devastated and emotionally crippled. All over the world, tens of thousands of people every year commit suicide and hundreds of thousands attempt but fail to ultimately take their own life. Although the root causes of suicide are not always so clearly defined, the typical suicidal person usually suffers from dire personal circumstances and/or experiences a chemical imbalance in the brain. Particularly in western culture, religious values often perpetuate the belief that suicide is a supreme act of weakness and selfishness; to some it is a sin worthy of eternal damnation of one’s soul. However, within the historical context of feudal Japan, to a trained class of warriors known as the samurai, suicide was sometimes the means to achieve an honorable end. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, to be a Samurai meant to be “a member of the Japanese warrior caste.” They were skilled fighters spiritually and socially bound to an honor code known as “bushido,” which translates to “the way of the warrior.” Their value system called for strict obedience and absolute loyalty to one’s master, and included Confucian-style ethics championing humanism and a sound moral code. The perfect samurai was also “the perfect gentleman:” and he took pride in strong, harmonious relationships with his family and comrades. When the bushido was violated, the guilty samurai would need to perform ritualistic suicide, known formally as “seppuku”, in order to restore their honor.
Translated to english, “seppuku” comes from the words “setsu” a...
... middle of paper ...
...>.
"Seppuku." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Oct. 2013. Web. 8 Mar. 2014.
"7 Samurai Myths." Spacious Planet. N.p., 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
Braue, John. "The Fine Art of Seppuku." The Fine Art of Seppuku. Rat's Nest, 19 July 2002. Web. 8 Mar. 2014.
* The interview with a person harboring professional or personal knowledge of the research topic was conducted on February 27, 2014 with Diane Makimoto via phone (INSERT NUMBER). She was born in 1963 to American immigrants from Japan and is a judo master and instructor residing in Sacramento. While judo did not exist until after the time of the samurai was over, judo is descending form of jujutsu, a fighting style the samurai used in combat. Makimoto has used judo to keep in touch with her Japanese roots, and she has spent years learning about the samurai from personal study and stories from her older relatives.
Men must face hardships. Men must face disease. Men must face each other [Parallel]. Men constantly pressure one another into perfection. Some men, however, crumble under the burden looming over their heads [FoS]. When some men cannot face themselves or those around them any longer, they choose a dangerous and deadly escape. They would rather commit suicide than face their hardships. In the japanese culture, society encouraged seppuku to end a life before a man brought dishonor to his family. In a world full of yearning for honor, young men learned that they must express courage through suicide to fulfill their honorable ancestors’ wishes. Gail Tsukiyama uses her novel The Samurai’s Garden to prove that only
Samurais or a knight? The question was, who would win the battle? A samurai - a samurai? Or a king of a knight? Of course they both have their advantages and disadvantages, but they also both have things in common that they can't do.
-Nara’s Buddhist temples were another result of cultural diffusion, Buddhist began in India in 500s B.C.E. about 1,000 years later, it came to Japan from China by way of Korea.
As learners of Europe and Japan, the question “ who would win a battle-a samurai or knight” is commonly kept in mind. A samurai and knight are similar in many ways. A samurai would mostly win the battle because they have better weapons, armor, and training. While knights and samurai have many similarities, in a one on one battle, the advantage would be to the samurai and this can be seen in weapons, armor, and training.
Samurai's core value is not humiliating myself. They would even rather end their own lives if they had to put up with humiliation. For example, if their daimyo died or if they lost a battle, they committed seppuku “stomach- or abdomen-cutting”, which is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. They did this to die in honor. Furthermore, Samurai had to follow some rules called “Bushido”,which means “The way of the warriors”. The rules include fidelity, politeness, virility, and simplicity. While, knight's core value is not to commit a sin. Knights often believe killing himself is a sin, this is because of influence of Christianity. They would rather suffer being alive than to commit suicide. Knights also had to follow a set of strict rules called Chivalry, which puts emphasis on justice, loyalty, defense, courage, faith, humility, and nobility.
"Explain the meanings and discuss the concepts and origins of Samurai and Bushido code, then relate these concepts towards the modern Japanese Soldier and Leader during World War 2 and show evidence to support that the Japanese soldier treated enemy prisoners exploiting Samurai and Bushido traditions."
It was the Portuguese, rather than the Dutch, were the first Europeans to begin a
Stories about war and implements of such can be observed throughout the course of Japanese history. This shows the prevalence of martial training and the profession of arms as a tradition that has not faded since ancient times (Friday and Humitake 13).
Minois, Georges. History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture. Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
Many people often see little similarity between the country of Japan and Europe. However, there are actually several similarities between these two countries. In fact, Reischauer and Jansen note that Feudal Japan had departed so far from East Asian norms that it was more similar to medieval Europe than it was to China. Thus, the knight of Europe and the samurai of Japan despite a lack of contact with one another shared several common elements. This was a result of many similarities social and cultural influences experienced by the two distant countries.
To a person not conversant with this art, Jujitsu may be considered as a foul or derogatory term in Japanese. However, Jujitsu us one of the most effective and deadly forms of martial arts taught today. Unique among other forms of combat, Jujitsu holds the position of a “parent art”, of from which other forms of martial arts such as Aikido, Judo and several Karate styles were extracted. Jujitsu is a combination of all levels of combat. It incorporates chokes, striking, grappling, nerve and pressure point attacks, joint locks, redirection of momentum and throws.
Do you know someone in the military? A loved one, a friend, do you know what they go through? I may not, but I do know about the harsh training and war that occurred for the Samurais and Knights. In Europe and Japan the empires were falling and Clans were taking over Japan. The government came up with an idea to create feudalism. There was an agreement in both Europe and Japan that exchanged land for protection. The similarities between Samurai and Knights were greater than the differences. This can be shown by looking at the three most similar areas: social position, training and armor, and life, honor, and death. The Samurai and Knights has their differences, but were the similarities greater than those differences.
...ere a loss of status would be catastrophic to the chances of genes replicating.” (Lloyd, Nikolas) This quote really shows exactly how people in japan feel when it comes to honor and social status. They truly believe that suicide is the way to correct all mistakes made and to protect the family from outside eyes.
One of the most fundamental philosophies of the samurai is that of detachment from the self. This detachment allows for a freedom from fear, which is essential to the samurai warriors. In the opening of Hagakure, Tsunetomo states that “the Way of the Samurai is found in death”. These rank among the greatest and most well known phrases in Japanese history, and in fact in the history of the world. Death is not to be feared by the samurai, it is to be embraced. The relationship between the samurai and his master is of the utmost importance, and only through detachment can the samurai fully and properly serve his master. These are two core, fundamental philosophies of bushido, and both can are reminiscent of similar ideologies in Buddhism, and Confucianism.
Deathly acts such as murdering, homicide, and genocide are acts that are associated with anger, pride, and even jealously, but none compare to the actions of suicide which are associated with sadness, grief, pain, that encircle and bound the victim, such so that he cannot see a way out. Furthermore, suicide is cause by many factors; some aspects are detectable, while others are not. In addition, suicide are caused by many elements including; emotional, physical, and psychological (genetics) they are also different in retrospective to age and gender. Lastly, there are many reasons and aspects to suicide, and while others are easy to tell why, others are not.