Assignment:
For this final paper (5 pages, double-spaced, 12 pt font) Use specific examples from the texts to back up your points. Make sure that your essay is well organized and clearly written, and proofread. You may refer to the lecture material, textbook readings and other readings assigned for the class, but do not do any research beyond this. When you quote or cite the main text you are analyzing, use internal footnotes to indicate the page number, for example (p. 6). And when you cite other texts from the class use the author's name or title and a page number, for example (Ebrey, p. 200).
Both the Ming Chinese story "Du Shiniang Sinks Her Jewel Box in Anger" and the Tokugawa play, "Love Suicides at Amijima" explore the complexities of relationships between men and women in societies undergoing the effects of urbanization and commercialization of the economy. Describe the roles and relationships of husbands, wives, and courtesans (or geishas).
How do these stories reflect the effects of commercialization? How do these stories portray the tension between ethical or social obligation (duty) and human emotion or sentiment (passion, love)? What core values do these stories reflect? How do religious ideas (Confucian or Buddhist) work in these texts? How do these texts treat the phenomenon of suicide?