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Yam Gruel by Ryunosuke Akutagawa Commentary The story “Yam Gruel” is about a man under the name of Goi, who is supposedly so ordinary that he’s name was not even recorded for any relevance to this story. This story is set in the Heian Period, during the time of courtiers. He was just a plain, simple man, frequently ridiculed by other samurai and disrespected by commoners because of his “red nose” and plain manner of clothing. Now, one may wonder where the title of this story was taken from. Well, it was taken from Goi’s obsession of yam gruel, which is a special, very expensive delicacy consisting of yam and a rare root. Samurais of his status can only attain this type of delicacy one day out of the entire year at a special celebration in which is everyone is invited therefore the portion of one’s yam gruel is barely enough to attain satiety. At the celebration of Fujiwara Mototsune, Fujiwara, a very wealthy man, overheard Goi say that he hadn’t had enough yam gruel and decided to invite him over to his mansion to eat as much yam gruel as he wanted, which Goi agreed to of course which everyone teased and laughed about. So of the two went and traveled to Fujiwara’s place for the principle of satisfying Goi