This research paper summarizes the insights into the roots of Japanese culture, its value systems and its outward manifestations which are contained in Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and Robert C. Christopher's The Japanese Mind. It also compares and contrasts the roles and patterns of conduct of Japanese women, as depicted in these books, and of American women. Both authors provide an in depth explanation of the unique features of Japanese culture and its seeming contradictions. As a cultural anthropologist, Benedict searches for cultural patterns which have evolved over Japan's long history. She is at her best in probing the inner workings of Japanese society. As a journalist, Christopher uses history to buttress his observations of contemporary Japanese life, including the post-war period up to 1982.
Japan's Historical Adaptation and Ethnocentrism
Christopher says that "Japan throughout its long history escaped having alien institutions and cultures imposed on it by force" and that its "society and culture developed in comparative isolation" (45). He stresses the homogeneity of the Japanese which resulted from the absence of any new genetic infusions after the eighth century A. D. (51). Benedict says that the basic social structure "has been ingrained in them by their own social experience" (47). Both point out that Japan has on a number of occasions borrowed external ideas and institutions, such as from Chinese civilization in its early history and since 1868 from the West, but that in doing so, she always adapted them to her own special circumstances. Benedict says that Japan's traditional culture developed into "a strong class and caste society" (57). This was solidified and protected against foreign influences, especially under the feudal Tokugawa shogunate, which "effectively sealed off [Japan] from the rest of the world" for more than two hundred years (16381868) (Christopher 47).
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