芥川龍之介「おしの」論

Abstract

This is a short story published in the magazine Chūō Kōron in 1923, and belongs to the so-called Christian stories by the author Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. The story's main character, Shino, is a widow of a samurai named Hanbei Ichiban-Gase, but his son Shinnojo is suffering from illness. She tried everything she could to cure Shinnojo's illness, but there was no sign that he was getting better. She asks a priest at the Nanban temple to cure him. The priest listens to her complaints and tells her about the achievements and life of Christ.After hearing the priest's words, she is 'deeply moved' by Christianity. But her attitude changes abruptly when the priest tells her the last words Christ breathed out on the cross.In other words, Shino interprets Christ's 'Eri, Eri, Ramasabhakdani' as a complaint to the Lord of Heaven, and despises him as a 'coward'. Shino says that she cannot entrust Shinnojo to such a 'coward' and leaves Nanban-ji with a frustrated expression on her face.Akutagawa portrayed Shino as living in the bushido of Japanese spiritual civilisation and the priest as living in the Christianity of Western spiritual civilisation. Akutagawa did not agree with the priest's one-sided disregard for the East.Christianity is the main material in this work, but it is merely material. Christianity was used to illustrate Akutagawa's ideas about the East and the West.