This story may not be entirely satisfactory as a fairy tale for children, and definitely doesn't make it as a romance. That is, the heroine never does marry the handsome prince. Worse yet, Kaguyahime doesn't impress western readers as being as lovable as claimed-- the emotion that seems most real is sulkiness. And her parents end up distraught to the point of illness. This is not a happily ever after ending.
I like it for its insights on the society of the time. Although the story predates the official adoption of Confucian ideal, it is clear that loyalty (the Confucians specify somewhat one-sided obligations of subject to sovereign, servant to master, son to parents, younger brother to elder brother and friend to friend) was an ideal of Japanese society. It is just as clear that reality didn't match the ideal-- the emperor first gains our sympathy with the comment to Fusako that his stock of subjects would be reduced if he killed those who didn't fulfill all his desires. And much of the humor of the stories comes from the fact that several of the suitors, who were willing to expend their wealth but not much more, were themselves served by retainers who didn't feel the need to show results as long as they could report making an effort. That is, making an effort would spare them the shame of failure. (And if there is any comment on parent-child relations, it is that shame is a weak training tool, and western children don't have a monopoly on self-centeredness.)
Shame was more of a reality. The Old woman's ultimate threat against the space aliens was to pull down theirpants. The suitors were punished by shame roughly in proportion to their attempts to deceive-- Ishizukuri gambled little and lost just that, but
Kuramochi's elaborate scheme (a story in itself that I consider the best part of the book) cost him fame, fortune, a good beating and possibly his life. Isonokami may be an exception; he made a sincere effort and died for it. But the shame was there: "the embarrassment of having people know seemed worse than his injury," and the embarrassment was at having sacrificed so much for a women who "could not help feeling a little sorry when she learned of his death."The children's story is generally called Kaguyahime after its heroine; the literary work is called Taketori Monogatari (The Bamboo Cutter). Many if not most of Japan's folk tales feature an old man and old woman to whom a child comes under unusual circumstances. I was interested at the extent to which this story features the old man rather than his wife, who didn't really say much until locked into the lacquer cabinet. Tsuru no Ongaeshi, the story of a bird who marries a young bachelor in gratitude for his kindness, is often told as one of a bird who comes to help out an old couple-- it is possible that the old woman is similarly a late addition to Taketori Monogatari who functions mostly as a chaperone.
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