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I was not really able to grasp the essence of “In a Grove” and “Rashomon” the first time I read it. It took me a while to really understand what Akutagawa was trying to describe and say. The movie and the stories were simple but at the same time complex. It was simple in a sense that it was short and direct to the point. It was complex because of the manner the stories were told, specifically the story “In a Grove”. There was a central story, which was about a rape of a woman and the murder of her husband. In my opinion, “Rashomon” was a vague story. Although, the message of the story was the clear, the manner in which the story was told was quite vague to me. It was about a rônin who was seeking shelter in Rashomon and finding a woman there stealing the hair of the dead people. The woman justified her actions and using the same principle, the rônin kicked her and stole her belongings. Kurosawa’s Rashomon was based on the combination of Akutagawa’s two stories. Kurosawa used parts of both stories to establish the theme of the movie. The beginning of the movie showed the Rashomon gate where some people were seeking shelter from the rain. The people who were there were the woodcutter, the priest, a