I am writing this paper for my Composition II class and I want
you to help me (since I came up with this idea like 3 hours
before it was due, and I scrapped my first idea in preferences of
this one. I need you all to help me with a response to this. I
need a few questions answered, and help with one aspect of the
paper. I haven't figured out where Kagome, Miroku, Kikyo, and
Naraku fit in to the scheme of the whole paper. And I need help
on to where to put them.
Pride and Prejudice
In Inuyasha there is a certain prejudice between three different
races, youkai(Demons), hanyou( half demons half human), and
Humans. These three races represent three different groups of
people; youkai-westerners, humans Japanese and Hanyou, the merger
of the two races. The attitude of the three races represent the
feelings of the Japanese toward westerners after the opening of
Japan by westerners.
Certain Characters represent the different perspectives of the
cultures, the main ones being Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Kagome, and
Sango. Each one has a different attitude toward the others in the
story, and interact differently then everyone.
Sesshoumaru represents the American view on the Japanese.
Sesshoumaru is a full youkai, who is very arrogant in his ways.
He believes that he is superior to humans and to his half-brother
Inuyasha, even though Inuyasha is his brother, and has the same
blood. The same is true about Americans when Japan was first
open. the Americans were very haughty, and believed that they
were superior to the Japanese because of their culture. The
Americans also shunned the children of mixed race. when a child
was born to a Japanese woman, there was no American who claimed
the child or the woman, and took them out of the country for
their safety.
Inuyasha's Mother is one of these women. she had a son from a
youkai lord, and she was shunned by the rest of the people for
having a hanyou for a son. The women who had children of mixed
origin were often shun in Japan. And even though Inuyasha's
Father did claim Inuyasha for his son, this put his life in
danger, and he died to protect his son, and his mother, even
though Inuyasha's mother died not too long after.
Inuyasha is an outcast of both worlds. Not Youkai, and not human.
He is a contradiction to the normal views of the time period,
where half-breeds were killed, and were not allowed to survive.
But his parents protected him so that he could live, but
unfortunately they died saving him. The children of mixed origin
are often shun to a point where they are social out casts. They
don't belong anywhere, and they don't have anywhere to go.
Sango, is a "youkai exterminator", who's sole porpoise
is to rid the world of Youkais, and "protecting" the
people who are hurt by the demons. After a while Sango came upon
Inuyasha, in order to kill him, but he won, and then they became,
more or less friends. Similarly, the Samurai tried to rid of the
westerners by killing them. They tried to forcefully run the
westerners out, and then they rebelled against the government
that was promoting the moderate westernization. But their revolt
failed, and they had to cope with the westerners.
