Draft Manuscript Research Paper: Japanese Studies/

Literature・Film

Characters Metamorphoses in Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s Hell Screen:

A literary analysis

Manuel Cisneros Castro (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Abstract

Luz Aurora Pimentel, Professor emeritus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and
prominent scholar in the fields of Narratology and Comparative Literature, studied and enriched
Gérard Genette’s concepts of Narratology. Using Pimentel’s theory I analyze the way the narrator
presents characters, their relationships with each other and facts in the story, as well as how is it that
through his version of the story, the narrator tries to persuade the reader about the moral qualities of
the protagonist Yoshihide.

An exchange metamorphosis takes place between Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide. Monkey
Yoshihide gradually receives human features (a name, respect among fellow humans) and begins
playing the role of father (helping, taking care of and defending his daughter). Yoshihide undergoes a
process of dehumanization (he is described as unable to cope with society) in which he appears as
unpleasant, vulgar and even demonic; Yoshihide thus turns gradually into a beast.

Keywords: Japanese Literature; Akutagawa Ryūnosuke; Hell Screen; Narrator; Japanese Studies

1. Introduction

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s masterpiece Hell Screen has been subject of a wide variety of analysis
since its appearance. One of the most preferred topics deals with the role of the narrator in the
story; the literary analysis I am proposing in this paper continues with this academic tradition.

The story reaches the reader after passing through several filters set up by the narrator, some of
them were intentional, some not. The first filter is the temporal distance between the moment of
the narrative act and the contents of such narration. The narrator claims to be a witness of
everything what happened back then, one may think therefore for a moment that the person who
speaks is the same as the person who watches; but the narration is nevertheless focalized in a
distant past, and as a result, the character of the narrator has a diegetic function in the story,
while the narrator has a vocal one. In the process of telling the story, the narrator selects what he
wants to tell (intentional filters) and what he does not want to tell (unintentional filters). But that
selection is also constrained by the limits of his known universe, that is, what he actually saw,
heard, was told about or perceived in any way. Even if he lies, the lie he can come up with is
limited to his known universe.

Besides the main metamorphosis in the story (namely, the exchange metamorphosis between
Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide), there are other minor metamorphoses in the narration: At the
beginning of the story, the young son of Lord Horikawa and Monkey Yoshihide play the role of
Lord Horikawa and Yoshihide as antagonists in advance. The daughter of Yoshihide transforms
herself not only into daughter of Monkey Yoshihide, she also turns form object of desire of both
antagonists (a sort of prize) into a way to exercise vengeance and punishment on the other one.

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2. Plot

The famous painter Yoshihide, who was known because of the astonishing realism with which he
painted, began having conflicts with Lord Horikawa, because the latter decided to take the
daughter of the former as a maid in his palace. Yoshihide’s daughter adopted a small monkey,
which was called “Yoshihide” as a scorn to the real man, who in turn was named “Saruhide” or
“Monkeyhide” because his appearance resembled that of a monkey.

At the moment when the relationship between painter and ruler was at its most tense point, Lord
Horikawa decided to order Yoshihide to paint a screen with images from hell. After several
weeks of hard work, in which the painter tortured his assistants in order to paint the condemned
souls accurately, Yoshihide asked Lord Horikawa if he could set fire to a luxurious carriage with
a court lady inside. Since Yoshihide could only paint what he had already seen, and since this
was going to be the main motif on the middle, it was a requirement if he was to finish painting
the screen successfully. The ruler agreed happily.

Everything was set to fulfill the artist’s desire. On the moment previous to setting the carriage on
fire, the curtains were opened to reveal the presence of the lady who was to be burned alive. It
was none other than Yoshihide’s daughter. One month afterwards Yoshihide presented his
masterpiece, which was admired by everyone who set his eyes on it. When he was back at his
home, he killed himself.

Besides the main storyline, in which the rivalry between Yoshihide and Lord Horikawa is
presented, there are other two parallel stories: the relationship between Monkey Yoshihide and
Yoshihide’s daughter on the one hand, and the relationship between Lord Horikawa and
Yoshihide’s daughter, on the other one. As we are going to explore later, the former is a sort of
father-daughter relationship, while the latter is the one that originates the tragedy. Besides these
two, there is also the relationship between Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide, which I will
analyze on its own.

3. The narrator

The narrator introduces himself as a humble servant who had worked for more than 20 years for
Lord Horikawa at the moment when the story takes place. Having said that, he grants himself
authority to tell the story, but more important than that, he would pretend to have a deep
understanding of everything what happened, and with it he would be able to disguise his opinions
as truths. These considerations are paramount to begin with the analysis I am proposing, because
as Pimentel states “much of the significance [of a story] depends on the quality of the
information. In other words, it depends on the grades of restriction, distortion and trustfulness to
which it is subjected.”1 Through his call to his public, we realize we are dealing with a narrator
who is conscious of his own narrative activity.2

Notwithstanding the personal objectives the narrator may have to tell only the parts of the story
that better suit him, with the details and tones that are more appropriate for him, he is a
secondary character. That’s why he has no choice but to present facts that occur in the world he
inhabits3 as an external actor: “The narrator doesn’t comprehends everything, and on top of that,
                                                                                                                       
1
It is not only important how much it is narrated, but from which point of view. Pimentel, L.A. (1998), p. 95.
2
“Theorists speak of self-conscious narration when narrators discuss the fact that they are telling a story,
hesitate about how to tell it, or even flaunt the fact that they can determine how the story will turn out.” Culler,
J. (1997), p. 88.
3
“It is through the mediation of a narrator that a story projects a world of human action.” Pimentel, L. A. (1998),
p. 12.

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we must consider the transformation of the facts because of his interpretation. One must also take
in account a partial lack of knowledge of the story. The narrator fills such holes adding guesses,
patches and rearrangements.”4

From the previous paragraphs we can infer the two types of filters that are present throughout the
story: involuntary and voluntary filters. We will come back to these later.

A witness narrates the “Hell Screen” in first person. This witness has an objective in mind when
telling the story, it is because of it that he decides what to tell and how to do it; it is his starting
point. Namely, remembering the spiritual and moral greatness of Lord Horikawa, in contrast with
the spiritual and moral lowness of Yoshihide. Because he decides to tell the facts several years
after they took place, he is a static narrator with temporal location at the end of the story.5 The
narrator has then a distant temporal relationship with the narrated events,6 or even more, what he
tells is a retrospective narration: “his grammatical choice is placed on the perfect times.”7 In this
configuration of the story is also important to know to whom he is telling the story, given that it
has specific addressees: it is aimed at contemporary people, some of them may also have known
Yoshihide.8 Let’s now see from where does the narrator tells the story.

3.1. Narrator perspective

In the following paragraphs I will deal with the focalization that takes place in the story, reason
enough to define focalization. Here I follow Pimentel again, who states that “Focalization is a
filter, through which the new narrative information flows. […] What is being focalized is the
story, while the only one agent capable of focalizing it, or not, is the narrator.”9

In order to get into this topic I would want to remember the two basic questions on focalization
in narrative theory: Who speaks? Who watches? More than often both are fused in the same
person in first person stories, because the person who watches is normally the same who watches.
But “The Hell Screen” is not like those. This is so because focalization is in facts that took place
in a distant past, but is narrated in the present. Following the thought of Culler, who states,  “the
choice of temporal focalization makes an enormous difference in a narrative’s effect,”10 Pimentel
points out that a first person narrator does not have access to any other counsciousness but his,11
nevertheless he can go back in time while narrating, as he evokes different moments he lived,
becasue “he has the possibility to change his temporal and cognitive perspective”12 While the
character of the narrator has a diegetic function in the story, the narrator has a vocal one.13  
According to Pimentel’s classifications then, “The Hell Screen” is a testimonial story, with
internal unmovable,14 consonant15 focalization, presented by a homodiegetic16 narrator.
                                                                                                                       
4
Paredes, A. (1987), p. 61.
5
“[The static narrator] exists only when the writer grants him definitive formation and opinion throughout the
story. It is located […] at the end, if the narrator tells the story after everything happened and begins a detailed
evocation with a definitive opinion that is thus established as unchangeable, regardless of what the story shows
about the happenings.” Ibid, p. 54.
6
“The enunciation situation of the narrative modus necessarily implies an interdependent and a temporal
relationship between the happening and the enunciator who deals with it.” Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 16.
7
Ibid, p. 157.
8
“Now as for Yoshihide, some people still remember him.” Akutagawa, R. (1987), p. 5.
9
Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 98.
10
Culler, J. (1997), pp. 88-89.
11
Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 106.
12
Ibid, p. 109.
13
Meaning it is part of the universe of the story.
14
“In the internal focalization the foyer of the story is like a figural mind, which means that the narrator limits
his freedom in order to select the narrative information that shows the cognoscitive, perceptual and space and

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3.2 Narration filters

I will now deepen in the kind of filters that are present throughout the narration. As I mentioned
before, they are divided in unintentional and intentional ones. The former are those that affect the
narration without any purpose by the narrator, which Pimentel names qualitative selection
principle that rules the narrative perspective.17 The intentional filters are the ones the narrator
applies with the intention of influencing the opinion of his readers; they are what Pimentel called
quantitative selection principle of the narration, in its spatial, temporal and auctorial aspects.18

3.2.1. Unintentional filters

The narrator, as a character who participates in the story, has the same limitations as any human
being to apprehend the world he inhabits. So, for him there is a known universe –it consists of
anything that he can perceive through his senses– and an unknown universe (that logically covers
anything that he cannot know). This division between known and unknown is observed in the
present, that is, in the moment when he tells us the story, as well as in the past, when the
happenings of the narrated universe took place. His intentions apart, what the can narrator tells us
depends on what he could have perceived at that moment, he is limited to telling us something
from his known universe.

The relation between the known and the unknown universes in the present and in the past, as well
as their connection with the narrated universe can be seen in the following image.19

Because of the nature of these filters, it is extremely difficult to find and outline them.
Notwithstanding the enormous difficulties that, as readers, we may have to deduct the
unintentional filters, we must always have in mind that much of what the narrator tells us, or not,
depends on what he can or cannot know. Let me illustrate this with the following example. In
chapters 12 and 13, Monkey Yoshihide begs the narrator with cries and mimic to help
Yoshihide’s daughter, who is being sexually abused. Without having the purpose to help her,
only because of the monkey’s conduct, the narrator goes in and interrupts the sexual abuse.
Immediately thereafter he sees the young lady coming out of the room, trembling and full with
fear, and at the same time, he hears someone else leaving the room. He tells us that he has no
idea who could have been the other one, and that the girl was unable or unwilling to tell him
anything. If (without granting it) the narrator remembers perfectly well what happened that night,
and if he is telling them without changing anything, we face here one of the unintentional filters
of the story, it is impossible for us to know who the aggressor really was.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
time limitations of that figural mind.” Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 99. The internal focalization is also unmovable
because the story is “focalized systematically on a character.” Idem.
15
“The narrator folds himself to the focal consciousness: he narrates and describes from the spatial, temporal,
cognitive, perceptual, stylistic and ideological limitations” of the character who tells the story, who was a
servant of Lord Horikawa. Ibid, p. 105.
16
“The narrator takes part in the narrated world”, in other words, it is in first person. Ibid, p. 136.
17
“Perspective is like a kind of filter through which any narrative information must pass; it is a characteristic
selection principle in which any narrative information is limited by cognitive, perceptual, ideological, ethic,
stylistic, spatial and time limitations.” Ibid, p. 22.
18
The spatial aspect is “the grade of detail with which places, objects or even actors who live in this narrated
world are described”; the temporal aspect constitutes “the temporal structures used in the presentation of the
happenings” and the auctorial aspects are “the different ways to present characters and their discourse, as well as
the relationships between them and the narrative functions they fulfill.” Idem.
19
This image was designed by Víctor Cisneros Castro, based on the illustrations present on pages 493-500 of
Miner, E. (1985). The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature, Princeton: Princeton University
Press.

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Now then, the narrator does not tell us absolutely everything from what is present in his known
universe. With the intention to hide something, or without it, there are certain things he does
know, and nevertheless decides to leave outside of the narrated universe. These are the
intentional filters, which we are going to discuss in the following point.

3.2.2. Intentional filters

We have already stated that the narrator had very clear intentions to tell the story; that is why he
leads it to where it better suits him to reach his objectives, turning thus the story in what Culler
calls an unreliable narration, one that “can result from limitations of point of view – when we
gain a sense that the consciousness through which focalization occurs is unable or unwilling to
understand the events as competent story-readers would.”20 Let us now analyze the subjective
grades with which the narrator presents Yoshihide and his antagonist, Lord Horikawa.

The narrator does not like Yoshihide. This antipathy is perceivable from the beginning and
throughout the entire story. When the narrator presents Yoshihide, he writes: “He was stunted in
growth, and was a sinister-looking old man […] He was extremely mean in nature, and his
noticeable red lips, unusually youthful for his age, reminded one of an uncanny animal-like
mind.”21 As the story goes on, he complements and broadens the adjectives about Yoshihide.22 In
order to support his negative judgments about the artist, the narrator relies in what he presents us
as the common opinion; according to his story, almost everyone thought the same about
Yoshihide: “The Abbot of Yokawa hated Yoshihide as if he were a devil. At the mere mention of
his name, he would turn black with anger and abhorrence. […] He was unpopular with
everybody who knew him.”23

On the other hand, he presents us Lord Horikawa as the supreme sum of human virtues, almost as
if he was a divinity:

“Everything he did was beyond ordinary expectations. […] It was far from
his intention to enjoy a monopoly of all glory and luxury. He was a man of
great stature who would rather share pleasures with all the people under his
rule. […] Moreover, it was undoubtedly his authoritative command that
exorcised the nightly hauntings of the spirit of the late Minister of the Left
from his mansion.”24

The above-mentioned descriptions can induce the keen reader to doubt about the objectiveness
with which the narrator presents the facts, or even doubt about the truth of the happenings. As
Pimentel points out, as the subjectiveness of the narrator appears, “the ‘I’ [who narrates] appears
gradually to offer us a ‘personality’ and, therefore, a subjectiveness that colors and deforms the
information about the world that is presented to us.”25 Through those lines we can deduct the
narrator’s intentions: remind his readers about happenings that took place some years before, in
order to praise Lord Horikawa’s memory and, at the same time, speak evil of Yoshihide’s. Now
that we have in mind the non-declared objectives of the narrator, we may proceed to analyze the
relationship between the protagonist, Yoshihide, and his antagonist, Lord Horikawa.

                                                                                                                       
20
Culler, J. (1997), p. 90.
21
Akutagawa, R. (1987), p. 5.
22
“He was stingy, harsh, shameless, lazy, and avaricious. And worst of all, he was so haughty and arrogant that
‘his being the greatest painter in the whole of Japan’ was hanging from the tip of his nose.” Ibid, p. 9.
23
Ibid, p. 8.
24
Ibid, p. 3-4.  
25
Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 139-140.

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4. Relationship between Yoshihide and Lord Horikawa

Even though the narrator insists on denying it –or precisely because of it–, Lord Horikawa was
deeply in love with Yoshihide’s daughter. The narrator presents this fact the following way: “It
should be recalled that the Lord took the girl into his good graces because he had been impressed
with her filial piety […] and not because he was an admirer of the charms of the gentle sex, as
rumors had it.”26 And a bit farther: “Undoubtfully he had made a ‘favorite’ of such a charming
sweet-tempered girl. However, it is a far-fetched distortion of fact to attribute all this to the
amorous motives of his Lordship. No, I dare say that this is an entirely unfounded lie.”27
Yoshihide, on his side, loved his daughter deeply: “He loved his only daughter […] with a love
bordering on madness […] he doted on his daughter to the point of infatuation.”28 His could have
been an obsessive, pathological love, which even have been interpreted as an incestuous one.29
Nevertheless, the antagonism between both characters began precisely because of that love
rivalry: both wanted to have the girl with them, in his own house: “when she was summoned to
be a chambermaid […] he was so displeased that he looked as sour as vinegar.”30 Because the
Lord himself had summoned the daughter, Yoshihide was unable to refuse, but he would not
waste the occasion to ask her back when Lord Horikawa, delighted by the high quality of a work
offered Yoshihide to grant him whatever he wanted:
–Yoshihide, I am pleased to grant any request of yours.
–If it pleases your lordship, […] allow me to request that my daughter be released from your
service.
–No, I can’t grant that.31

If the rivalry between both characters dated back, the preceding dialogue marks the break point
of their relationship: “Now it seemed to me that each time his Lordship looked at Yoshihide with
less favor and with growing coldness in his eyes.”32 Here began the fatal descending spiral of the
clash between protagonist and antagonist; various scenes like the previous one were repeated
until the death of Yoshihide’s daughter.

4.1 Yoshihide, Horikawa and the hell

The reflex of the hell is repeated throughout the story in different grades. Lord Horikawa asks
Yoshihide for the hell screen when the relationship between both is utterly damaged, it is a sort
of projection of the inner side of them: “it was at the time when his Lordship had come to look
upon Yoshihide with considerable disfavor that he summoned him to his mansion and
commanded him to paint on a screen a picture of Hell.”33 They are both living a hell that spins
around Yoshihide’s daughter: the Lord and the artist want the girl for himself, without sharing it
with his rival. The young woman is in the middle of the confrontation: which means she is in the
center of a hellish tornado of antagonism between both characters, around her unfolds the hell of
their battle, with the court and its courtesans as background: “Courtiers in dignified court dress,
coquettish wives of samurai in elaborate costumes, priests praying over the rosaries hanging from

                                                                                                                       
26
Akutagawa, R. (1987), p. 7-8.
27
Ibid, p. 13.
28
Ibid, p. 11.
29
山中正樹（２００６）p. 336.
30
Akutagawa, R. (1987), p. 11.
31
Ibid, p. 12.
32
Idem.
33
Ibid, p. 13.

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their necks, samurai students on high wooden clogs, girls in gaudy gala dress, fortune-tellers clad
in the robes of Shinto priests[…]”34 The resulting picture symbolizes this:

The most outstanding of all horrors, however, was an ox-carriage falling in

mid-air grazing the tops of the sword trees that had branches pointed like
animals’ fangs, through which heaps of bodies of dead souls were spitted.
In this carriage, which its bamboo blinds blown upward by the blast of Hell,
a court lady as gorgeously dressed as an empress or a princess was
writhing in agony, her black hair streaming amidst flames and her white
neck bent upward.35

The hell deserves such name only if oneself is the one who suffers, not when others are the
tormented ones. So, the graphic representations of hell, as well as the immolation of Yoshihide’s
daughter resulted in being the hell for the girl and for the protagonist, but also for the antagonist.
Lord Horikawa asked for a picture of hell because he wanted to watch reflected there his own
inner suffering caused by the rejection of the girl, and was fascinated by the idea of actual
revenge on the girl, thanks to the father petition: “The Grand Lord darkened his face for an
instant but suddenly burst into a pearl of laughter. ‘All your wishes shall be granted’ […] ‘Yes, I
will burn up a nobleman’ carriage.’ […] ‘A charming woman dressed like a court lady shall ride
in the carriage.’”36 Nevertheless, since hell is only the one that is self-experienced, trying to
create hell for Yoshihide, he created his own, in which he defeated himself. After witnessing the
horrible scene, Lord Horikawa “harrowed by the very horror of the scene, appeared pale and livid
as though he were a changed being. Foam gathering at his mouth, he gasped like a thirsty animal,
grasping the knee of his purple-colored skirt tightly with both hands.”37

We have then three hells: that from the Lord, that from the painter and that from the girl. At last I
want to talk about the metamorphosis suffered by Yoshihide and the monkey who bears his name.

5. Yoshihide / Saruhide duality

The correlation between Yoshihide, of whom “some slanderous people said that he was like a
monkey in appearance and behavior, and nicknamed him Saruhide (monkey hide),”38 and the
monkey, whom “The Lord’s young son, who was at his most mischievous age, nicknamed […]
Yoshihide,”39 points out to the most interesting relationship in the story. Both are complements
and counterparts of each other.

Let us begin with the name: On the one hand, the man Yoshihide, because of his rudeness,
personality and appearance is seen less as a man as an animal, he is seen as a monkey, and
therefore is called Saruhide. On the other hand, as a kind of projection, everybody at Lord
Horikawa’s mansion call the little monkey Yoshihide, using the real name of the man, and aim
the antipathy and hate they profess to the man at the poor animal, “whenever the monkey
climbed up the pine-tree in the garden or soiled the mat of the Little Lord’s room, indeed,
whatever he did, they shouted his name and teased him.”40 Playing with someone’s name means

                                                                                                                       
34
Ibid, p. 14.
35
Ibid, pp. 14-15.
36
Ibid, pp. 30-31.
37
Ibid, p. 39.
38
Ibid, p. 5.  
39
Idem.
40
Ibid. pp. 5-6.

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to insult him;41 both, man and animal are thus identified as the same hateful being. And what
implies that two characters share the same name? The answer is complicated. I follow the
definition of the name of a character from Pimentel, who reformulates Barthes42 and writes that:

Starting point for the individuality and permanence of a character

throughout a story is the name. The name is the semantic magnetic center
of every single one of his attributes, the reference to any one of his actions
and the identity principle that allows us to recognize him through all his
transformations.43

In the case that we are dealing with, we have a shared name. Henceforth that semantic magnetic
center mentioned by Pimentel, around which attributes, actions and identity gravitate, is also
shared by both characters. It is because of this that the exchange process that I describe in the
following paragraphs is possible. Between Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide we have then an
interesting Doppelgänger case, as defined by Freud:

“[…] the quality of Doppelgänger [das Doppelgängertum] in all its levels and
forms [is] the acting of characters that, due to the same appearance ought to be
taken by identical; [it is] the complexity of this relation through jumps of psychic
phenomena from one character to the other one –what we may call telepathy–, so
that the one possess the knowledge, feelings and experiences of the other one, [it
is] the identification with another character, so that the I disorients itself, or the I
form the other one takes the place of the own I, meaning double-I, I-division, I-
dislocation.”44

In “The Hell Screen”, even though the characters are not identical in reality, they are identical in
the minds and imagination of the people: we should remember that, on the one side, much of the
mocking towards Yoshihide were aimed at comparing him with the monkey, and on the other
hand, the monkey had the same name. I will try to explain this further.

If both share the same name, and therefore, share identity attributes, both are complementary
faces of the same being. This fusion between Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide comes to its
peak when, followed by the son of Lord Horikawa, Monkey Yoshihide seeks protection with
Yoshihide’s daughter. The girl begs in the name of the animal as if he was her father: “To hear
the words Yoshihide called out, I am quite upset, as if my father were chastised.”45 And the child
desists on punishing the monkey, because he recognizes him as the father of the young woman:
“I see. Since you plead for your father’s sake, I’ll give him a special pardon.”46 Finally comes
Lord Horikawa’s acknowledgement of this fact, and with it, public acknowledgement:

                                                                                                                       
41
“When it is intentional, the changing of names implies an offense.” [“Das Verdrehen von Namen entspricht
einer Schmähung, wenn es absichtlich geschieht.”] Freud, S. (1999) “Das Versprechen”.
42
“When identical semes go repeatedly through the same name and seem to attach themselves to it, a character
surges.” Barthes, Roland; through Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 60.
43
Pimentel, L. A. (1998), p. 63.  
44
“[…] das Doppelgängertum in all seinen Abstufungen und Ausbildungen [ist] das Auftreten von Personen, die
wegen ihrer gleichen Erscheinung für identisch gehalten werden müssen, die Steigerung dieses Verhältnisses
durch Überspringen seelischer Vorgänge von einer dieser Personen auf die andere –was wir Telepathie heißen
würden, –so daß der eine das Wissen, Fühlen und Erleben des anderen mitbesitzt, die Identifizierung mit einer
anderen Person, so daß man an seinem Ich irre wird oder das fremde Ich an die Stelle des eigenen versetzt, also
Ich-Verdopplung, Ich-Teilung, Ich-Vertauschung.” Freud, S. (1999) “Das Unheimliche”.
45
Akutagawa, R. (1987), p. 6.
46
Idem.

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The Lord is said to have given gracious orders that the girl should be brought
before his presence with the little monkey in her arms. […] “You are a good and
dutiful daughter. I am well pleased with your conduct,” the Lord said, and
presented her with a scarlet robe as a reward. The monkey, mimicking her
deferential obeisance in expressing her gratitude, raised the robe to his forehead,
to the immense amusement and pleasure of the Lord.47

After the public acknowledgement, the jumps of psychic phenomena that mentioned Freud take
place. Monkey Yoshihide became the human part of Yoshihide; he is present when and where
the father should have been to support his daughter: “Once when the girl was laid up with a slight
cold, the little monkey sat at her bedside, and with apparent concern, he watched over her,
gnawing on his nails.”48 Monkey Yoshihide is accepted now as a human being, he has a humanity
that Yoshihide never had; he is not teased any more: “After this time, strange as it might sound,
no one would tease the little monkey as they used to. On the contrary, they all took to petting
him.”49

Meanwhile, the human Yoshihide still appears as antipathic before everybody, and is still seen as
an animal: “Although the monkey, Yoshihide, came to be loved by everyone, the painter,
Yoshihide, was as much hated by everyone as before, and continued to be called ‘Saruhide’
behind his back.”50 The painter, completely submerged in his creative task, forgets everything,
even his beloved daughter; we are told that “once he took to painting a picture, he had even no
thought of seeing her.”51 Yoshihide is then confirmed as the animal part of that dual being
composed of man and monkey, in which the man is the monkey, and the monkey is the man.

As the story approaches its climax we have Monkey Yoshihide performing heroic deeds to save
his daughter. One day, in the Horikawa mansion he comes across the narrator and desperately
asks him for help: “In the moonlight I could see the monkey baring his white teeth, with wrinkles
in the tip of his nose, and screaming wildly as if he had gone mad.”52 After following the animal
to the place where it wanted to lead him, and incidentally interrupting a secret encounter between
Yoshihide’s daughter and someone apparently unknown to the narrator –in whom we could infer
Lord Horikawa trying to rape the girl– Monkey Yoshihide humbly thanks the narrator for
interrupting the previous scene and saving the girl, “repeatedly bowing his head to express his
gratitude with his hands on the ground like a man, his gold bell tinkling.”53 Here we are at the
last stage of the Doppelgänger phenomena, in which the identification between both characters is
complete, due to the I-exchange.

Finally, as the tragic end develops, Monkey Yoshihide does what human Yoshihide cannot (or
wishes not to) do: he suffers willingly the horrible death with the young woman. Yoshihide had a
reflex movement when he realized that it was his own daughter the one that was about to face the
destiny of being burned alive, “he attempted to rush toward the carriage in spite of himself. But
the instant the fire blazed up, he stopped.”54 On the contrary, Monkey Yoshihide did not hesitate
even for an instant:

[…] something black bounded like a ball without either touching the ground or
flying through the air and plunged straight from the roof of the mansion into the
                                                                                                                       
47
Ibid, p. 7
48  Idem.  
49  Idem.  
50  Ibid,  p.  8.  
51  Ibid,  p.  15.  
52  Ibid,  p.  25.  
53  Ibid,  p.  28.  
54
Ibid, p. 36.

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furiously blazing carriage. Amidst the burned crimson-lacquered lattice which

was crumbling in pieces, it put its hands in the warped shoulders of the girl, and
gave, out of the screens of black smoke, a long and piercing shriek of intense
grief […] What was holding fast to the shoulders of the dead girl, with the red
curtain of blazing flames behind it, was the monkey.55

What we have then, between Yoshihide and Monkey Yoshihide is an exchange: the human turns
into an animal, while the animal turns into a human. The progression of the metamorphosis could
be schematized as follows:

6. Conclusions

The narrator of “The Hell Screen” has very clear intentions not only to tell what he does, but also
to do it the way the does. He never wastes a chance to praise Lord Horikawa or to speak evil of
Yoshihide. The latter does not deserve even a kind word, even the love he had for his daughter
was perverse, according to the narrator. On the other hand, the former never receives even the
slightest critic; the narrator even finds a plausible excuse for burning Yoshihide’s daughter alive.
Monkey Yoshihide takes Yoshihide’s place, while the artist is degraded from his human quality
to the category of beast; this all responds to the plan the narrator had to make Yoshihide appear
as vile and despicable.

Art was, for Akutagawa, a kind of light in which the artist was suddenly involved, something like
a current that flows through life.56 “Yoshihide, the hero-artist of “The Hell Screen” is so swept up
by that current he forgets that the model being burnt to death before his eyes is his beloved
daughter.”57 The true artist must leave everything for his art; there is no (there can be no) other
priority. As Napier states, in the protagonist of this story, Akutagawa created a character that
transgredes every single social and moral limit in the name of the art that has consumed him. The
price he will have to pay is nevertheless too high: it takes his life and that from his daughter. For
Akutagawa, Art was perfection; this was its only reason to be. As Sakai Kazuya stated, “the
fanatic faith in a pure art, the intellectual despise towards moral, turn Akutagawa’s life in a hell
that he himself reveals in his stories.”58 This is no other one than “The Hell Screen.” For both
Akutagawa and Yoshihide, art is the only aspiration that a true artist must have. It is a bitter irony
that the common parallel between them continues up until its last consequences: Akutagawa gave
up to his own hell, and as Yoshihide did, committed suicide.

                                                                                                                       
55
Ibid, pp. 37-38.
56
Ueda, M. (1976), p. 140.
57
Idem.
58
Akutagawa, R (1959), p. 13.  

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References

Akutagawa, R. (1987). “Hell Screen” translated by Takashi Kojima, in Hell Screen, Cogwheels, A
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Akutagawa, R. (1959). Kappa. Los engranajes, prologue by Jorge Luis Borges, translation and notes
by Kazuya Sakai. Buenos Aires: Mundonuevo.
Culler, J. (1997). Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freud, S. (1999). “Das Unheimliche” in Werke aus den Jahren 1917-1920. Frankfurt am Main:
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Freud, S. (1999). “Das Versprechen” in Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens. Frankfurt am Main:
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Napier, S. J. (1996). The fantastic in modern Japanese literature. The subversion of modernity.
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Paredes, A. (1987). Las voces del relato. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana.
Pimentel, L. A. (1998). El relato en perspectiva. Estudio de teoría narrativa. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.
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O’Brien, J. (1988). Akutagawa and Dazai. Instances of Literary Adaptation. Tempe: Arizona State
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Ueda, M. (1976). Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature. Stanford: Stanford
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山中正樹（２００６）「地獄変」私論——〈語り〉の詐術／〈語り手〉の裏切り——   『桜花学園大学人
文学部研究紀要』８。

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