Abstract
The story of the Forty Seven Ronin has inspired an entire genre, both literary and scholarly. This paper is meant to add to the ongoing discussion by examining both the historic Akō Incident and the dramatizations that followed (primarily Kanadehon Chūshingura, for the purpose of this paper) and using these as a center point, highlight the role and identity of ‘samurai’ ideals, mainly honor- defined here as a quality for which an individual earns respect for themselves and others in their community- and loyalty, in Tokugawa era Japan. The main questions this paper addresses are first, how does the Akō Incident highlight a gap between the generally accepted morality of the time and the code of laws? How does this help create and perpetuate the legend? And second, how does the Akō Incident and the surrounding literature show how typical bushido ideals extend and appeal to non-samurai?