Who Killed The Samurai? A Class Exercise on First-Person Perspective

“In A Bamboo Grove” is a Japanese short story written by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It was later adapted into the classic Japanese film Rashomon in 1950 by director Akira Kurosawa.

In the story, a samurai has been murdered in the bamboo forest. The story is written as a series of police testimonies given by eyewitnesses. The facts given by each character all are different and cancel each other out, making a complex unsolvable mystery.

Class Exercise

Each student has been assigned a character and is allowed to write their own version of what happened from their character’s own perspective. The students can decide whether their character is guilty or innocent and whether their statement is the truth or a lie.
The characters include a Woodcutter, a Priest, an Old Woman, the Samurai’s wife, a Criminal and the Ghost of the Samurai himself.

The following is the testimonies our Creative Writing students have written for their characters.

Who do you think is telling the truth?

PCPSMay 4, 2021