The Spider's Thread

Screaming a big 'NO' to egoism, Akutagawa Ryunosuke dramatically captures the readers' hearts and at the same time carves in their minds the punishment of self-interest. It is also observable that despite a story bent on exposing the harm of selfishness, "The Spider's Thread" also incorporates a few basic elements of Buddhism into its significant events specifically, Buddhism's concepts of "karma". In a nutshell, karma is best described in the saying, "what goes around, comes around". This concept of Buddhism is observed in the part where the lord Buddha recalls the good deed Kandata had done and decided to repay it with a good deed in turn, which would have been salvation on the part of Kandata through the spider's thread. Karma basically means that every action would bear with it an equal   response, that is, if you do good things, good things will happen to you, and vice-versa. Kandata, claiming the thread for himself and ordering the other sinners to climb down (which is a selfish desire) opted for an equivalent consequence, which was the breaking of the thread. The story in its essence is very captivating. In fact, the story may even be good enough to serve as an inspiration for individual reformation. The moral lesson etched in the story is vivid and very simplistic. However, I was more interested in how the author presented the story itself. Akutagawa Ryunosuke's diction as far as I'm concerned was so dramatic that when I read it, it almost sounded like poetry. I loved the way he ended the story. It suggests a very calm, soothing atmosphere, "The lotus blossoms in the lotus pond of Paradise, however, are not concerned in the least about what has happened. Those blossoms of the whitest white wave their cups around the divine feet of the Lord Buddha and from the golden stamen in the center of each an indescribably pleasant fragrance issues forth abidingly over the adjacent area. Noon draws near in Paradise."