Sansho The Steward

This short story describes the experience and hardships of losing the two young children's mother and their terrible involvement with a Slave owner. I particularly enjoy reading about the two children; Anju and Zushio's relationship and how they overcame the incredibly risky escape plan at the cost of Zushio's older sister Anju life. In the beginning I had a bad feeling that the three boatmen Yamaoka, Miyazaki, and Sado were going to capture them. I was very skeptical from there on with every new characters introduced. Sansho The Steward was a man about sixty years old and tolerable of his two son's ambitions with a clear representation of one son symbolizing an arrogant way of accomplishing his own desires while the other sympathize with Anju and Zushio desires to find their lost mother and long gone father. When both children realize they had the same nightmare they prayed to Anju's Jizo amulet on which the statue showed a scar in the shape of a cross. I soon realized that this particular amulet had the divine protection of Buddhist spirit because it cleansed both children pain after they received the hot iron on their forehead. Later before Anju sacrifices herself for her younger brother chance to escape in the hope that one day he would be able to be reunited with their parents she gives the amulet to Zushio because she knew it would guide her brother on his spiritual journey. Toward the end I learned that the amulet was an ancient treasure dating back to the early part of the era of Eiho and it was made clear that Zushio was of noble descent. The ending is a happy one and sad at the same time because he found out his father and sister had passed away however he was fatefully reunited with his now blind mother calling out her son's name.