The Writer's Craft: An Analysis of Akutagawa Joseph Janey College

How is it that one’s purpose or direction in life always seems to be predetermined? Nowhere is there a check point where it is appropriate to pick what one’s hopes and aspirations are and magically expect them to happen. The only plausible explanation for this is that it simply will not happen. Society has cast a dark shadow in the sense that there is little hope for venturing outside one’s expected bounds. This is one of the main themes in the story "The Writer’s Craft." Horikawa Yasukichi experiences this first hand as he gets so caught up in the supposed societal bounds that it interrupts him accomplishing anything and puts his dream of being a critically acclaimed author to a screeching halt. No matter what he tries to do, the only success the Navy school teacher has when it comes to putting pen to paper is writing eulogies in a time of despair. The title that embeds him seems forever inescapable, hence causing Yasukichi to act in an outright manner, almost depressing to some degree. This frightening fact along with the way others perceive him goes back to show how tightly and how harshly a simple title can tarnish not only one’s livelihood, but also one's will to live.

The seemingly endless list of preconceived notions...