Akutagawa's "In a Grove"

Narrative Point of View The form of the story is seven dramatic monologues. A dramatic monologue is a form of onesided dialogue in which a speaker interacts with someone else who is also speaking, but his words are never directly given. In the first dramatic dialogue, the Woodcutter addresses a Commissioner who asks him questions, which we only know indirectly by means of the Woodcutter's responses: "Yes, Sir. .....You ask me if I saw a sword or any such thing?" Each of the dramatic monologues has a highlighted title--for example, THE TESTIMONY OF a WOODCUTTER QUESTIONED BY a HIGH POLICE COMMISSIONER. The titles are forms of Third-Person narration. But the content of the seven testimonies is First-Person narration. Each of the seven is a personal testimony, which is, by definition, first-person.

Plot The plot is simply the juxtaposition of contradictory accounts of the events in the grove. It is not a detective or mystery plot. Not about who done it or about the truth of what happened. Simply a presentation of the differing accounts of the same event by the Woodcutter, the Bandit, the Wife and the Husband. There is no resolution.

Setting The primary setting is the court of the Police Commissioner. The place and time aren't defined. The setting of the rape? and death is a rather non-specific grove.

Characters There is no main character. Each of the characters tells a story that about what happened in the grove. However, the story is not about the characters--who's lying, who's truthful.

Symbols There are no major symbols in the story.

Theme The story has no clear theme. It simply presents four stories that contradict each other. What are we to make of it? There is not enough evidence in the story to suggest a simple meaning such as "there is no truth about what happened." Any detective could solve the mystery rather easily by examining the wound and cross-examining the witnesses. Is the story about the unreliablility of eye-witnesses? We can say that each of the speakers presents himself/herself in a favorable light. Is the story an ironic commentary on the self-interested narture of story-telling? The story leaves us pondering its meaning.