Write your analysis of the poem “The Martyr”.
Answers
The Martyr" is the most removed from Akutagawa's usual writing style of all the short stories in this collection. He employs an archaic register, a righteous protagonist, and authority figures that are absent from all the other stories. The historical setting of the Early Christian period in Nagasaki suggests that there may have been a Church of Santa Lucia there in the 17th century, however, many scholars have debated the existence of the text that Akutagawa purports to have in the postscript. It was not up for debate long, because Akutagawa admitted to the illegitimacy of this text within his short lifetime. But this is not necessarily a negative feature of the story.
"The Martyr" describes far less psychological turmoil than any of the other short stories, which successfully reminds the reader of archaic texts. This tactic elevates the text to a level of absolute truth that Akutagawa is otherwise unable to achieve as a modernist writer. However, when scholars unveiled Akutagawa's fabrication, the reader is left to wonder whether it is an important detail at all. Considering authorial intent, it seems that he was trying to share a heart-warming story about a spiritual and religious awakening surrounding the martyrdom of a cherub-like figure with a mysterious past. The legitimacy that he loses with the scholarly discovery does not change this intent, but does show the lengths that he had to go in order to write such a story. Other authors who have employed this tactic such as Johann Wolfgang van Goethe and Horace Walpole have used it in the service of portraying different cultures in a digestible format and criticizing the idea of genre fiction, which are both possible
The righteous protagonist, Lorenzo, can be looked at as a modern-day Jesus Christ, as is denoted directly in the text by the Father Superior. Religious figures in the other short stories are mostly affiliated with Buddhism and lack any true spiritual connection to the gods. In fact, more often than not, they are called out for their folly - they are used as bait for a criticism against hypocrisy, another common theme for Akutagawa. For Lorenzo though, there is no such baiting. She turns the other cheek constantly and wins everybody's affection for her strict adherence to Christian values in the end.
By including faulty authority, Akutagawa also raises the theme of the story above human endeavors. By having Father Superior and Simeon reduce Lorenzo to a liar, they are effectively losing their righteousness. They no longer do the right thing for the sake of rightness, but rather respond to human pressures, like any other religious figures in these short stories.
Overall, this piece both increases the breadth and application of Akutagawa's most important themes from an entirely new point of attack, making it an invaluable part of the collection.