A Note on Kokusenya-kassen: The Birth of a Story of the “Birth of a Brave Man”

Abstract

In Kokusenya-kassen, Chikamatsu-Monzaemon's puppet play, the main character Watōnai first appears as an immature man unfit for battle. Encouraged and guided by his old mother, however, he goes to China in the cause of the reconstruction of the Ming dynasty. In the most dramatic scene of the third act he is driven to despair and fury by his mother's suicide and makes up his mind to be reborn as a brave man. This narrative pattern of Chikamatsu's play provided a model for numerous stories of a brave hero.