Ryunosuke Akutagawa 
Reading Guide and Test Center of Must-Read Classics 
Rashomon

As night fell, a soldier who was evicted by his master came to the door of Rashomon. In war times, Rashomon Gate has not been repaired all the year round, and now it had become a horrible place where corpses pile up and crows gather. The soldier was homeless. He had to make a living, but he couldn’t make up his mind to do some evil things. When he hesitated, he found an old woman pulling out the hair of a dead man in the door. He was terrified, but after careful questioning, he learned that the old woman’s move was also forced by life and helplessness. After hearing this, the soldier was greatly touched, and finally made up its mind, grabbed the old woman’s clothes and fled Rashomon and disappeared. The novel is ingenious in conception with twists and turns in plot, describing the choices people at the bottom of society had to made to survive, and conveying the author’s thinking on human nature, which is thought-provoking. This book is consisted of the most representative short stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Although some works have been published for nearly a hundred years, their vitality is still tenacious, and they are repeatedly sought after and praised by the world. In the 1950s, this book was adapted into movie by Akira Kurosawa, and the film with the same name won the "Oscar Award for Best Foreign Language Film" and great reputation all over the world as well.