Charlotte McCarron
CAS 137H
Rhetorical Analysis Rough Draft
(STRONG INTRODUCTION)
Hokusai, a well-known artist, has a large collection of prints and paintings. One of his most recognizable is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Other works of his however are often overlooked and not spoken about. The first piece that I have chosen to look at is Chinese Immortal Yuzhi and Her Dragon depicts the story of Yuzhi, the daughter of the Queen Mother of the West. She was a member of the Daoist pantheon. According to the legend, Yuzhi played the kin, her skill was so mesmerizing that flocks of birds would come to her. A white dragon was said to be instantly tamed by the sound of her playing. The second and third pieces The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji and The Ghost of Oiwa are part of the collection One Hundred Ghost Stories (Hyaku Monogatari 1831/32). This collection of works is comprised of 5 famous designs in chuban format. Both pieces come from kabuki lore. This format leans towards horror, the pieces are creepy and disturbing with some of them being borderline terrifying. In The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji, Hokusai retells the story of an actor who was tortured and killed by his wife and her lover. In a fictionalization of the story, which was performed in 1808, Koheiji (the man in the print) returns to haunt the people who killed him. Hokusai shows the man’s skeleton looking over a mosquito net at the couple as they are about to die. The third print is also part of the collection, The Ghost of Oiwa. This print also takes on a similar tone to the last piece. Originally a play, which was first staged in 1825, Oiwa was a horribly disfigured woman, due to being poisoned by her husband’s lover’s family. Her husband Iemon, to find a ground for divorce, convinces a servant to rape his wife. She is killed during the attack, as a result, she comes back as a ghost to torment her husband. In the end, he throws himself into a river and drowns. The first print comes from a completely different era to the other two.
The history and the stories behind these pieces play an integral role in how Hokusai decided to depict the characters. In a story or a play, the characters are given time to be flushed out. The audience can grow and share their emotions over time. There are clear progressions and character growth. A print or painting, on the other hand, is very different. Yes, there is no question that a good painting can bring out emotions and drag you into the turmoil of the subjects, but it is difficult. A painting, print or photograph captures a single moment, a snapshot of time that has to tell an entire story. Hokusai does this well throughout all of his pieces, he manages to express the emotions and themes of the stories through only one or two prints. In the first print Chinese Immortal Yuzhi and her Dragon, Hokusai makes deliberate moves to add to the story. He chooses to create two prints, where her dragon is separate from Yuzhi, the dragon stares, and circles her kin as he presents it to her. “As if to state that her creative gift was bestowed upon her by a divine muse,” (). The pathos of this choice makes the audience view Yuzhi as almost above humans. She is an ethical and goddess-like figure who has the ability to tame a beast as deadly as a dragon with just a song. It makes the viewer fall into the story and almost become hypnotized just like the birds and the white dragon in the story. In addition, to the significance of the dragon to the story, the beast also has special significance to the artist. “The first character of his name means ‘dragon’ and he was born in the Year of the dragon,” (). Similarly, to the beast giving Yuzhi her gift from the muses, Hokusai believes that he has been given a gift and it almost controls him. As a result, he added a seal on the print, “creativity is my master”. This adds to his logos, no the audience shouldn’t trust him when he says he was given a gift from a god, but it helps the audience to establish a connection with the idea of having a gift and using it to benefit others. Hokusai is telling people to not look at him, but rather at the art and the story that it tells.
(ADD A STRONGER TOPIC SENTENCE AND INTRODUCTION) The second and third prints take on a much different tone, one of tragedy and despair. The second print, a disturbing and creepy depiction of a man who was killed by his wife and her lover, was done with much care and attention to detail. Hokusai is thought to have referenced anatomy before creating the piece, due to the realism of the skeleton. This slight detail of making the skeleton, who is the main focus of the painting, accurate adds to the ethos and the pathos of the print. The viewer is reminded of Hokusai’s legitimacy and credibility. In addition to the raise of credibility, the details of the skeleton draw the viewer into the piece, the tone is creepy and more realistic. A story about people from a long time ago now starts to become real. It makes the audience relate the story to something they could have seen in the news or on a television show. Hokusai is able to deliver the same feeling that horror movies accomplish with jump scares, with a simple immobile woodblock print. The third print, The Ghost of Oiwa, depicts such a prolific and horrible story about a young woman. Any painting, play, print or retelling of the story has to be just as horrific. Hokusai manages to do this extremely well; he manages to show the emotion of the Oiwa as she comes back to haunt the person responsible for her murder. When the audience looks at this piece, they don’t see the beautiful women she once was, they only see what she has become. What greed and lust have caused for her. Hokusai. Both prints come from the same time period, they both take on similar topics and both manage to convey the story to the audience from a simple print.
(CONCLUSION)