The Love Suicides

In The Love Suicides, Ritter by Classmate Anemones and considered to be a masterpiece, many complications arise In this romantic and dramatic tragedy that demonstrates a most complex look at love. In this essay, I will delve Into the symbolism of the work, the significances of the characters’ actions, the cultural differences from those that I am accustomed, and my viewpoint of the fatal ending. The Love Suicides is set in a Snakeskin, Japan tea house in 1720 and is a great favorite of the Japanese stage.
It tells the calamitous story of Jessie, a paper merchant and his lover, Koura, a prostitute. This story Is about the moral and social code ender which the townsmen lived at the time, with the status of merchants being lower than that of the samurai class. Even though considered to be a lower class, the townsmen had developed a firm ethical code whereby in order for your business to prosper, your financial and personal obligations had to be met first. Jessie is married to his cousin, San, and is tormented by his sense of duty to his family and tormented by his love for Koura.
The story opens with Koura secretly meeting a “samurai customer,” while dodging Ethel. A wealthy man who Is attempting to buy her contract and take her as his own. Koura does not like Tahiti and wants no part of him. In trying to understand Tahiti, I can only imagine that he feels. Tahiti is a rich guy who loves this woman but she in love with another man who happens to be married and the father of two children. The “samurai customer” walks in wearing a wicker hat concealing his face.

The samurai Is actually Jewel’s brother, Magneto, a flour merchant, who has come Into the tea house to meet Koura. However, Ethel believes him to be Jell, whom he despises and begins to speak negatively about him attempting to defame him and ruin his reputation in the eyes of Koura. Tahiti continues to rant about Sissies occupation as a paper merchant, putting him down incessantly. The “samurai waited patiently for his turn with Koura, and finally Tahiti left, but left her depressed and In deep thought about her love, Jill.
This only makes the “samurai” even angrier because after being very irritated at all of the commotion Ethel had made, he soul Is not getting any service as a guest of the establishment. The “samurai” is getting angry with Koura for neglecting him, and she begins to tell him that she’s been afraid of dying ever since Jessie asked her to omit a love suicide. Unbeknownst to Koura,Jessie is outside eavesdropping, having gone to visit her after hearing that she was meeting a samurai costumer. Jessie has been with Koura for almost two years and everyone knows it.
He begins to wonder If the two years had been a lie. Jell Is so Infuriated at this point that he tries house. In an effort to defend Koura, the “samurai” grabs hold of the Sissies hand through the latticework and ties him up. Tahiti returns and sees Jessie tied up outside the window and seizes his opportunity to beat him up, while calling him a thief trying to rob the place. The samurai comes to Sissies defense and starts assaulting Tahiti, causing him to run away. It was then that the samurai revealed himself to be Sissies brother.
Magneto begins to pour his heart out to his brother, telling him how his affair with Koura has Just about destroyed his family and tarnished his own reputation. Jessie understands and tells his brother that he is ending his relationship with Koura, wanting to destroy all of the love letters that were exchanged between himself and Koura. Magneto takes all of them and finds a note from San, Sissies wife, addressed to Koura. What are the limits of love? In this story so far, boundaries have been pushed and emotions have run high. Sissies brother is clearly there out of love for his family and for his brother.
When the reputation of your family and your own is at risk then this is the point where a serious decision has to be made on what your future actions will be. San actually starts to feel sorry for Koura and the situation the she is in, loving a married man (her husband) and has a contract on her by someone who she doesn’t love. San wants Jessie to go and save Koura from committing suicide. She wants him to pay the ransom to get her out of the contract. Jessie tells San that the price is very high so San gets half of the money and tells Jessie to pawn all of the family fine garments to make up the other half.
These family garments are the nicest and most valuable items at the time to own. These are thick silk and patterned clothing that have been passed down through the generations. Why does San care that much about a woman that is sleeping with her husband? These are the cultural difference that have made this one of the best stories and is still in books today. When Son’s father, Agamemnon hears that San was willing to ell the family garments to save her husband’s mistress, he forbids it and demands that Jessie divorces his daughter and takes San away.
In the meantime Magneto is running around looking everywhere for his brother. Jessie hides from Magneto, watching and listening sadly to his brother’s anguish and pain. Jessie sneaks back to the tea house and gets Koura and they take off to Maxima, knowing that their lives would end soon and decide that they will die at the Adagio Temple, the perfect place for their love suicide. Jessie and Shark’s decision to kill themselves is quite stubbing to me. The thought of committing suicide in the western word is extremely taboo.
In many eastern societies, it is considered an honorable way to die. I believe suicide to be a cowardly act. Jessie isn’t thinking about his wife or his children, only himself. Jessie tells Koura that he has divorced San, but still out of respect for her they will not to die together, saving San the shame of how it will look. At dawn, the fateful couple prepare for death. Jessie stabs and kills Koura with a knife and then hangs himself by Jumping off a sluice gate with a noose around his neck. They die in the belief that they would share the next life together in happiness.
A teaching of Buddha is that those who commit suicide for love will be together in the next life to come. As for me, this is a story of impulsiveness, heightened emotions, and human frailties. Jessie was torn between two opposing worlds, one of duty and the It is true that love is a most powerful emotion and can make some people commit some of the most irrational, unfathomable, illogical, incomprehensible, hopeless, desperate and deadly acts imaginable. In the case of Jessie and Koura, they did it for love.