Japan Review: The 47th Ronin

I took a great seminar on the history of the Chûshingura (忠臣蔵 or the story of the 赤穂浪人: the famous Japanese saga of the revenge of the 47 ronin) with Henry D. Smith at Columbia 2 years ago. We focused mostly on the imaginative potential of a historical event and the many fascinating ways that this event has moved through Japanese culture since the early 18th century. We all covered one aspect of this, my own being the changes in the portrayal of Chûshingura in prewar and wartime Japanese elementary school textbooks (some passages of which I translated if anyone is interested in reading more).

In his article “The Trouble with Terasaka” in the 2004 (No. 16) of the Nichibunken Japan Review Professor Smith writes about Chushingura and the controversary surrounding the mysterious samurai number 47, Terasaka Kichiemon. Not everyone who knows the famous story (google Chushingura, no time for links right now) knows that only 46 were sentenced to death by seppuku suicide and Terasaka lived a quiet life in the aftermath. Smith’s fascinating article explores not only the difficult question of what happened to Terasaka, but like our seminar did, tracks his changing face through the Chûshingura “imagination” in Japan in the centuries that followed. He ultimately concludes that Terasaka was not allowed to join the others because he the only one of the low ranking ashigaru (足軽) status.

As seen by the bushi elite, he was reduced to an expendable menial, but from the vantage point of the chônin audiences who were the most ardent consumers of the Chûshingura legend, he could be a heroic striver, living proof that even the lowest could become an honorable hero through dedication and skill. Terasaka functioned as a literally pivotal character in both the history and legend…since Terasaka could cut in different directions, he was thus a “troubling” figure who was often claimed and contested by rival audiences…The foot soldier Terasaka Kichiemon…occupied a…marginal place within the overall story, but one that by its very marginality sheds much light on the changing structure of Chûshingura over three centuries. (4)

Professor Smith has previously written on the common myths of Japanese history, such as the famous 4 level class system of early modern Japan, and in this article he expands on this to talk about the interesting marginal status of Terasaka and also the “in between” class of the 足軽 samurai.