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.