In a Grove

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In A Groove
The author was born in Tokyo. During his time, which was around the 1900s, many of the fiction storywriters based their stories on naturalism. However, the author did not align his writing to naturalism. Therefore, he borrowed themes from old tales, but complicated them using complex modern interpretation. As such, most of his stories, including In The Groove, has a modern setting. Apart from this, the author portrays stylistic perfectionism, and in particular, there are instances where macabre themes are evident in his literal works. Well, In The Grove, is almost a reflection of the author’s life. I feel this because, the author committed suicide, and the main character of the story commits suicide. Nonetheless, whatever the motive, other than what scholars speculate was the motivation for In The Groove, the story achieved its aim to express a modern approach to identifying murder criminals. However, investigating murder crimes is a daunting task; hence, In The Groove is a presentation of the distinction between truths and lies (Rumboko).
In A Groove is a story about a young couple whose journey turns tragic. On their way, they met a thief, who not only acquired their possessions, but also coveted the wife of the young samurai. The thief posed as a travelling companion. He got the couple into the dense part of the forest, where he rapes the samurai’s wife. Then, the thief escapes, the samurai’s wife escapes too, but the young samurai ends up dead. Because of the death, seven people provide their view on the death. These people were the woodcutter, who found the body of the samurai, the thief, monk, young samurai’s wife, samurai’s mother and the murdered samurai’s spirit.
Based on this, the aim of the book was to find out who committed the murder. Later on, questions arise, mainly because the thief confesses to the murder, which the reader knows the thief did not commit. As such, why could someone confess to a murder he or she did not commit? All the people who give their testimonies provide distorted perceptions of the possible happenings. Each of the testimony, however, aims at making the characters look better, based on their cultures. The samurai’s wife, for example, professes her value of honor above her life, while the thief brags of his past crimes, and confesses to have committed the murder (Filart).
From the story, it is apparent that, the author’s aim was to expose the reader into a world of mystery. The author tests the reader’s sense of justice and morality, mainly because readers will t...