In all of Akutagawa�fs rather dark themed short stories which were assigned, there was clearly a strong emphasis placed on the supernatural. In the conclusion of the first story, �gThe Clown�fs Mask�h, I got the impression that what initially seemed to be a harmless comic mask could possibly have been haunted and not of this world, and was eerily portrayed as the cause of the main character�fs death. In �gThe Immortal�…showed first 75 words of 484 total…

…showed last 75 words of 484 total…tone, but to drive home the point (whether it be a moral or not) Akutagawa wanted to make, and/or heighten the impact of the story on the reader. The realm beyond this world is an insecure topic for most of us, and I believe Akutagawa plays on this weakness of ours to not only take his literature to a higher level, but to make the reader contemplate even more on the story as well.