It is not unusual for folk tales to come in several versions. In this case, the first version listed starts with the monkey - crab - persimmon story but shifts to an explanation of the hair-like structures on the crab's pincers. After being hit by the green persimmon, the crab relies on invective, not violence, until the monkey follows up by thrusting his tail into the crab's den. (It is obvious that this folk-tale monkey is not a Br'er Rabbit type-- there is nothing clever about that tail thrust, and he isselfish and mean rather than mischievious.) When Akutagawa said "The monkey who stole the crab's riceball suffered vengeance, in the end, from the crab" he was not referring to the tail.

Obviously, Akutagawa's followup doesn't follow my version of the story. Akutagawa refers to a version which, aside from having an egg, rather than a chestnut, as one character, has the crab lead the vendetta and kill the monkey. The stories I read always had a female crab, who sometimes died from the monkey's attack, but normally was only injured. Why is that?

The point of Akutagawa's update is that the social assumptions that underlay the original were changing. His poet-politician cites the spirit of bushido, which is illustrated by the original story, in which a wrong is committed and avenged. The epitome of this feudal philosophy is seen in the 47 ronin of Chushingura, the storehouse of loyalty. After the 47 avenged their dead lord they were seized and sentenced to death like the crab (since the feudal world was already slipping away in their day) but the important thing is that they were respected for doing what was, in fact, expected of them. Akutagawa's crab found no such sympathy. Needless to say, Akutagawa was only reporting the facts of this social change, and could poke fun at feudal conventions quite as easily as at modern conventions.

The general rejection of bushido vendettas that Akutagawa documents is further illustrated by subsequent changes to the story. Because it was no longer justified for a man (or crab) to take vengeance because his honor had been insulted, the victim changed to a mother crab who was protected by the community itself. Subsequentally, it was realized that the children to whom folk tales have been relegated were too tender to cope with the death of the poor mother, and so she was put to bed with a damp cloth on her forehead, and lived to receive the monkey's apology. That the monkey would back up his apology with annual service is an even more recent innovation. I stuck that part in myself; please don't mind it.