Interrupted Truth: From the Narrative Distortion of in a Grove

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s In a Grove fuses the “call of the Wild” and the “call of the West” to deconstruct the singularity of truth through seven contradictory testimonies. Departing from the life-or-death dilemma in Rashōmon, this work exposes how shame and despair distort humanity. While Akira Kurosawa’s film implants a “quasi-truth” to bridge narrative gaps through humanistic hope, Akutagawa’s skepticism reveals language’s opacity and truth’s relativity—an enduring modern predicament.