The Blind Beauty (Japanese folktale)

Author: Traditional Japanese

Time Period: 1901 CE–1950 CE

Country or Culture: Japan

Genre: Folktale

Overview

The “Blind Beauty” is a local Japanese folktale of the Kansai region around the old imperial capital of Kyoto. It is a story about the persistence of hard work and true love against all adversity. The orphaned teenage protagonist, Kichijiro, becomes a trusted apprentice of the rich local merchant Hachiyemon. A dedicated and hard worker, Kichijiro quickly gains the trust of Hachiyemon. In addition, Hachiyemon’s beautiful daughter Ima—frequently called O Ima San with O and San being honorics—falls in love with Kichijiro. Initially, this love is not returned by Kichijiro. Kichijiro is determined to become successful first and has not yet allowed himself to think of love and marriage.

Kichijiro’s meteoric success at Hachiyemon’s business arouses the jealousy and hatred of the other clerks. Among them, the senior clerk Kanshichi bears a particular double grudge against Kichijiro. Kanshichi is not only jealous of Kichijiro’s rise in business, but he is also in love with Ima, who does not return his affections. Kanshichi plots Kichijiro’s downfall and succeeds in engineering Kichijiro’s dismissal. Reeling from this disgrace, Kichijiro pledges his love to Ima and promises to achieve his redemption. As evil Kanshichi still cannot win the affection of Ima even after Kichijiro’s forced departure, he ruins the house of Hachiyemon itself. Ima’s fortunes decline rapidly as her father dies and an illness turns her blind. However, in the end, the true love of Kichijiro and Ima triumphs. Successful once again, Kichijiro returns to Ima and stays to true to his pledge despite her blindness.

“Kichijiro, deeply as I regret it, I am obliged to send you away. I do not believe in your guilt, but I know that if I do not send you away all my clerks will leave me, and I shall be ruined. To show you that I believe in your innocence, I will tell you that my daughter Ima loves you, and that if you are willing, and after you can prove your innocence, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have you back as my son-in-law.”

“The Blind Beauty”

“The Blind Beauty”was collected from a local Japanese storyteller by English traveler and amateur naturalist Richard Gordon Smith. Smith published his edited translation of the story in his 1908 anthology Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan, which presents fifty-seven folktales he had collected in Japan. His book was reissued in 1918. Out of copyright, it was republished in 1986 and was later made available digitally.

“The Blind Beauty”is somewhat unusual for a folktale as the Japanese storyteller gave Smith an exact date for its beginning, the year 1626, during the reign of the third Tokugawa shogun (third military ruler of the Tokugawa dynasty). It is also set in two real places, the local city of Maidzuru (Maizuru) and the imperial capital of Kyoto.

A cultural and historical analysis of “The Blind Beauty” reveals how the folktale addresses multiple social, gender-related, political, and economic issues in both traditional and modernizing Japanese culture and society. Tracing the course of the oral tale from its origin during the early part of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868), to its oral rendition during the late Meiji period (1868–1912), and to its translation and transcription into English in 1908, the analysis indicates how editorial and authorial discretion has shaped the contemporary version of the tale in English.

Summary

As he turns fifteen in the year 1626, Kichijiro decides that he “must begin to make a way in the world for himself” and looks for an apprenticeship (Smith 245). His father had died when Kichijiro was just eleven, making Kichijiro an orphan as his mother had died sometime before. After his father’s death, Kichijiro had left his native village of Tai and been taken in by his elder brother Kichisuke. They live in the provincial town of Maidzuru facing the Sea of Japan on the northern coast of the traditional Tango Province, now part of Kyoto Prefecture.

After a careful search for a suitable position, Kichijiro apprentices himself with the rich merchant Shiwoya Hachiyemon. There, Kichijiro proves himself a dedicated and reliable worker. Within less than six months, Kichijiro is entrusted with the key to Hachiyemon’s safes and is preferred over all the other clerks. Hachiyemon’s daughter Ima, who is the same age as Kichijiro, rapidly falls in love with him. She is described as a great beauty, with lovely features including raven-black hair. Kichijiro at first has no eyes for her because of his single focus on commercial success.

Kichijiro’s preferential treatment by Hachiyemon causes the envy of all other, older clerks. Chief among them is the senior clerk Kanshichi. Kanshichi has a double motive for his hatred of Kichijiro. Not only is Kanshichi jealous of Kichijiro’s rapid ascent in the business hierarchy, but he is also in love with Ima, who refuses Kanshichi’s advances.

Kanshichi plots to destroy Kichijiro. When Kichijiro is sent to Kasumi in Tajima Province, bordering Tango Province to the west along the coast, to buy a sailing vessel, Kanshichi springs into evil action. He breaks into the room where Hachiyemon’s safe is kept. Kanshichi manages to steal about two hundred ryo in gold coins and erases all traces of his theft.

When Kichijiro returns, he notices the missing money and informs Hachiyemon of this fact. A search begins, and after some hours, the money is discovered in an incense burner owned by Kichijiro. It is Kanshichi who detects the money, as he had planted it there. Kichijiro vigorously defends himself. Hachiyemon tends to believe him, although the whole incident makes Hachiyemon very uncomfortable. Realizing that Hachiyemon is not ready to act against Kichijiro, Kanshichi approaches his master. He raises a challenge, demanding that unless Kichijiro can prove his innocence, he must be dismissed. Otherwise, the honor of all clerks would be in doubt. Kanshichi threatens that if Kichijiro is not turned out, he and all other clerks would leave Hachiyemon’s employment and Hachiyemon’s business would falter.

Hachiyemon gives in. He dismisses Kichijiro, citing Kanshichi’s threat, and confirms his own belief in Kichijiro’s innocence. He tells of Ima’s love for Kichijiro and expresses his agreement to their marriage once Kichijiro could prove his innocence.

Forced to leave, Kichijiro realizes his affections for Ima. He promises to return as a redeemed person and to marry Ima. Before Kichijiro leaves, “with Ima herself he [has] his first love scene” (248).

Kichijiro goes back to his brother Kichisuke, who has returned to Tai village. With his brother’s help, Kichijiro is employed in the business of his only surviving uncle in Kyoto. After four years of hard and faithful work, Kichijiro is rewarded. His uncle gives Kichijiro a share of his business and makes him heir to some of the uncle’s real estate property. At twenty, Kichijiro has become very rich.

Conversely, “calamity had come on pretty O Ima” (249). With Kichijiro gone, Kanshichi begins to sexually harass her. Ima rejects Kanshichi resolutely. When he tries to rape her, she tells her father, who dismisses Kanshichi. Incensed, Kanshichi plans revenge on Hachiyemon and his daughter. Kanshichi succeeds in burning down their home, business offices, and storages. This ruins them, even though Kanshichi is “caught in the act and sentenced to a heavy punishment” (249).

Feeling too old to start anew, Hachiyemon retires in poverty and lives with Ima in a small cottage by the river. After three years, he falls ill and dies. Ima refuses all advice to marry someone who could lift her out of poverty, confessing her love for Kichijiro. So great is her love for him that she states, “’I can love none but Kichijiro, though I shall not see him again’” (250). The narrator points out that this will become literally true. Two months after her father’s death, Ima contracts an eye sickness that leaves her blind.

It is at this time that Kichijiro, having prospered greatly, decides to return to Hachiyemon at Maidzuru and ask for Ima’s hand in marriage. Once he learns of what happened, he travels to Ima’s cottage. Ima steps out to meet him but weeps and cries in despair. She is convinced that because of her blindness, Kichijiro cannot marry her. However, Kichijiro gently rebuffs her in a powerful speech in which he lays out his plans for their shared future. Kichijiro will use his own wealth to revive the business of Hachiyemon, “‘but first and before even this [they] will be married and never part again’” (251). He will ask also his uncle in Kyoto for advice and is sure of the uncle’s blessing of their marriage.

Things turn out exactly as planned by Kichijiro, with neither his brother nor his uncle objecting to Ima’s blindness. Impressed by his nephew’s fidelity to his marriage pledge, the uncle gives him half of his own capital to restart the Hachiyemon business in Maidzuru. This is done, with the business called the Second Shiwoya Hachiyemon.

In a final act, Kichijiro erects a memorial stele to Hachiyemon atop an artificial mountain in the garden of his new Maidzuru home. He also adds a memorial to Kanshichi at the foot of the mountain. This is a clever gesture through which Kichijiro “reward[s] the evil wickedness of Kanshichi by kindness, but show[s] at the same time that evil-doers cannot expect high places” (252). Here the tale closes with a reference to the public belief that the two memorial steles still exist at the time of the tale being told in the early twentieth century.

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