"The Love Suicides at Amijima" and Double Suicide

“The Love Suicides at Amijima,” a puppet play, and Double Suicide, a film, is a tale of love, duty, and death. The story takes place in 1720 Osaka, Japan, where society is overwhelmingly dictated by the concept of “giri”: obligation to family and adherence to the rules and mores of society. Naturally, to fail in “giri” is to incur great shame and dishonor.  For Koharu and Jihei, their forbidden love causes them to fail in giri and the only solution they believe can fix their predicament and allow them to be together is suicide. In this way, the "love suicide" illustrates the tension between pure love and an impure world. 
 

To me, this story represents the timeless theme of the conflict between what one is expected to do and what one wants to do. This theme can resonate with children, teenagers, and adults. However, this story is very much centered on the concept of love, which constitutes one of a few universal characteristics of human natural regardless of ones culture. What struck me as progressive was that Chikamatsu illustrates that even the love of a prostitute is deep and has significance. 

While Catherine Russell would advocate that there is no human connection between West and East stories, I could not help but compare “The Love Suicides at Amijima” to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” After doing some further reflecting though, I realized that aside from the passion of a pair of young lovers, each of whom would literally rather die than live without the other, the two stories have more differences than similarities. For one, Romeo and Juliet start out as pure beings, whereas Koharu is an impure prostitute and Jihei is a mundane store clerk. Most importantly, the deaths of Romeo and Juliet are based on a misunderstanding, while Koharu and Jihei deliberately make the decision to kill themselves.

According to Peter Brooks, a characteristic of melodrama is that “nothing is spared because nothing is left unsaid” (1995). It is easy to assume that this characteristic of melodrama is present in the story since the forbidden lovers die in the end, but I was not convinced that the story culminates with no questions left. Even though this taps into religion and philosophy, I could not help but wonder what happens to the lovers after they die? It is suggested that they will be able to finally be together without being shammed, but that is something the reader will truly never know. Additionally, the story does not trace what happens to Jihei’s family after his death.

Some additional critical questions I have relating to the story and film:

• How are Confucianism and Buddhism at conflict with one another in this story?
• Do you think Koharu’s duty to Osan can be labeled as feministic? 
• How does body language in the film enhance the concept of melodrama? If Jihei and Koharu did not get on their knees to beg or uncontrollably cry/wail, if characters did not shake each other when arguing, if Jihei had not cut his hair, etc. would the film still have the same melodramatic effect standing on its own with plot? Or is this excess of body language trying to replicate how the puppets would have to be manipulated in the puppet play?
• Do the intimate, sexual scenes in the film enhance or diminish the melodramatic component of the film?
• Do the black figures (we can call them puppeteers) that follow the characters around in the film distract from the story or help add to its intensity? Do you think Jihei's suicide would have even happened if it wasn't for the puppeteers aiding him along?
• Do you think the story is illustrating tension regarding social, physical, human, cultural, or financial capital? Or is it a combination of all of them? 

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I was able to experience this story in the form of prose fiction as well as film, but I was curious to what extent propaganda for this story was "melodramatic." Even though melodrama is a descriptive term, it is not typically used when discussing still images. However, I believe it fits with the two pieces of propaganda below. Even though the first poster is more complex than the second poster, I find it interesting how both posters are in black and white with red accents. The red accents seem to add pressure to the posters, morphing them from a 2-dimensional image to a 3-dimensional image. While you may not be able to envision ethnical issues, gender differences, class inequalities, good vs. evil, spirituality/religion, gesture, etc., which are all aspects of melodrama, there seems to still be this inarticulate melodramatic feel.