Musui's Story

Musui's Story

The time after the fifteen hundreds marked a time of great change in Asian countries. Places like China saw a new dynasty take control of the country. And almost every Asian civilization from India to Indonesia came in contact with people from western nations which changed the way people did business and the way Asians viewed the world. Japan, however, seemed to keep separate from the rest of Asia in the way that they were hesitant to deal with westerners. Despite their separateness, this period in time still brought an immense amount of change to Japan and its culture. The autobiography titled Musui's Story shows what life was like during Japan's time of change. When taking Musui's Story in context, one can see not only the change and decay of the samurai way of life but also the change that all of Japan saw during this era.

In order to understand Musui's Story, one must first understand Japan's history up the point where the book was written and who the samurai were in Japanese society. The time period that Musui's Story is written is commonly called the Tokugawa period or the Edo period which began in 1603 and lasted till 1868. Before this time, Japan was in a state of constant civil war. And while there was one emperor in Japan, the country was divided in a feudal system. In was in this feudal Japan that the samurai, a class of warriors, emerged. These warriors were essential to Japanese society because of the constant warfare. These warriors were supposed to live by a code or a way of life called bushido; which means "way of the warrior." Analogous to the code of chivalry by European knights, bushido emphasizes things like loyalty, self sacrifice, justice, sense of shame, refined manners, purity, modesty, frugality, martial spirit, honor and affection. The samurai were bound to protect their lord and serve the Shogun who was the highest ranking samurai. After a while certain shoguns began to try to totally unite Japan. Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were two shogun who got very close to uniting Japan, but it was Tokugawa Ieyasu who finally completely unified Japan and set up a government called the shogunate in 1603. The establishment of this government signals the beginning of the Tokugawa period mentioned above. The Tokugawa period is a time of great change in Japan. There was finally peace after hundreds of years of warfare, culture flourished and the old hierarchal system began to change.

It is in this era that Musui's Story was written. This book shows the life of a samurai during the late Tokugawa period. The autobiographer, Katsu Kokichi, is a low ranking samurai who lived during the last sixty years of the Tokugawa period. He is the youngest of three sons. As a youngster he was given to mischief and ran away twice from his home, begging for food and later posing as the emissary of a feudal lord. He eventually marries and has children but never obtains official preferment and is forced to supplement a meager stipend by dealing in swords, selling protection to shopkeepers, and generally using his muscle and wits. In his life, we see a man who lives a life of decadence, poverty, extortion and even crime. And through his tales, it paints a picture of what life was like for people during that time.

One thing that is made obvious by this story is the decaying position of the samurai by the late Tokugawa period. The samurai's original function was to be warriors in a time of constant warfare. So after the Tokugawa brought peace to Japan the samurai became warriors without war. As one can see by reading Katsu's tale, he never gets close to fighting a real battle. Most of the fights he gets in he starts. He says many times in the book that he went around with his friends starting fights. Many of his other fights come in the form of going to fencing schools and challenging other students. This may show that with the lack of warfare going on samurai's skills in fighting were almost useless and definitely unnecessary during Katsu's time. It was more like a sport than something essential to Japan (as it was before this time). This is no surprise considering that at the time of Katsu's life there probably had been no war for centuries. Also, in a way he was financially