In a Grove and Bears of Nametoko

In a Grove and Bears- This story is about a murder but the weird part is that nobody really knows who murdered the man. Throughout the story a policeman interviews people about a mans death. At first everything makes sense the Priest's story falls in line with what the police know, a lower policeman's story falls in line with the high officer knows, and then out of no where a man named Tajomaru confesses to the murder. His tail of how the murder happened was very strange. I do not think I could someones beloved spouse just so I could get them to be with me. I would think that if a person did not want to be with you when their spouse was alive that when you kill their spouse they would not want to be with you even more. It was foolish of Tajomaru to think that the girl was telling the truth when she said she would be with him; it was stupid of him to be surprised when the girl was no where to be found. Well after reading this part it made sense and I thought that he was the killer but then all of a sudden the story goes on to talk about the confession of the dead man's wife. The wife confesses at a temple that she was the murderer of her husband because after Tajomaru had tied him to a tree she could see deep into his heart and she did not like what she saw. So if that did not confuse me enough the last account of the story comes from the dead man's spirit. You talk about a weird interview to have; the confession of the dead mans spirit. The spirit claimed that he wife was willing to go away with the robber to where ever he wanted to go and this made him mad. Then all of a sudden the robber turned to the man and asked if he wanted his wife killed but the girl ran away and then the man ran away. The spirit then claims that it kills its own self with a dagger. So the question still stands; who killed the man????

The Bears of Nametoko- This story was very unbelievable. I was following the story along pretty well until the bears started to talk. I felt real bad for the bears and Kojuro; neither of them liked the situation they were in. I felt bad for Kojuro because he loved the bears and did no want to have to kill them but at the same time he needed money to get food for his family. I also felt bad for the bears; they liked Kojuro a lot and it made them sad that Kojuro had to kill them. I wish Kojuro could have made a living in a different way. It was really sad and weird when the one bear talked to Kojuro and asked him not to kill him for another two years because he had things that needed to be done. The bear being able to talk reminded me of reincarnation and how some of the people believe in it. It makes me wonder if they are right or wrong to believe that animals were former people. I do not understand why Kojuro had to get killed by a bear; I guess it is because he had killed so many bears. It was weird to read about how the bears all gathered around the mans dead body and sat in a praying position about him. It was different to read about how the animals loved the man so dearly even though he killed them.