A duck egg, broken. Crystal prayer beads. It is sad when parents make a beloved son into a monk. The decision has its reassuring aspects, to be sure, but it is pathetic that people should think of the young man as no more human than wood or stone. But I am talking about the past.
Monks nowadays seem to lead a comfortable life.
Part Two Write an essay on two of the following topics, referring to appropriate texts from the course to support and illustrate your ideas. In presenting your ideas, you may wish to consider both similarities and differences between Japanese and African cultures. Discuss how those characters represent different social and economic positions within the society portrayed within the plays. Compare attitudes towards death in traditional Japanese and African cultures, looking at the range of cultures and historical periods we have discussed. Compare the relationships between the supernatural and the human in African and Japanese cultures.