Mosquitoes by Lafcadio Hearn | Prose summary | Phoenixofliterature

“Mosquitoes”

                        -Lafcadio Hearn

"BE PERSISTENT LIKE A MOSQUITO, AT THE END 

YOU WILL GET YOUR BITE"

                                                                                         -BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn was born on 27 June 1850 in Greece and he was a Japanese writer. He was a translator, writer, Journalist and teacher. He was known for his collections of ghost stories. He was mainly written on the themes of supernatural power, theme of sacrifice, karma, nature destruction and its consequences. He is the one who introduced Japan’s culture and literature to the west. His notable works are Glimpse of Unfamiliar Japan, Kwaiden and Youma.  He was died in 26 September 1904. The prose Mosquitoes is taken from his Insect Literature. It consists of twenty essays and stories in Japan where the insects has much appreciated.

In this prose, the author talks about the mosquitoes near his house and its dangerous bite. He says that mosquitoes bite is irritating and disturbing and how he has persecuted by it. He particularly talks about a tiny needle mosquito and its bite is compared to an electric burn. It resembles the creature in the book by Dr. Howard called as Stegomyia fasciata or Culex Fasciatus. This type of mosquitoes brings more troubles in the afternoon. He says that the mosquitoes have come from the Buddhist cemetery (Buddhist Cemetery means a graveyard in Japan which contains 200,000 gravestones and monuments. The peoples of Japan believed that Buddhist monks are waiting for their resurrection of the future Buddha). It seems very old cemetery and is situated in the backyard of author’s garden.

He says Dr. Howard book suggest the use of petroleum or kerosene oil to destroy these mosquitoes. This book recommends a person to pour the kerosene oil once in a week with the ratio of “at the rate of once ounce for every fifteen square feet or water-surface, and a proportionate quantity for any less surface.” The author says that his tormentors come from the Buddhist cemetery.  Every tomb in that old cemetery has a cistern called mizutame. It is filled with water because the people believed that the dead ones need water to drink. They also placed flower vessels and bamboo cups with water but it didn’t properly maintain. There is a well in the cemetery to supply water for the graves. Whenever the tombs are visited by relatives and friends of the dead persons, fresh water is poured into the tanks and cups. It contains thousands of flower vessels and water in all of these cannot be renewed every day. It becomes stagnant and the rainfall at Tokyo being heavy to keep the cisterns filled during the nine months out of twelve months. This creates millions of mosquitoes. The author says that according to Buddhist doctrine some of the mosquitoes are the reincarnations of those dead people in the grave and punished by the sins of their previous mistakes and turns as a blood drinking pretas.

Dr. Howard’s book says that the cost of destroying all the mosquitoes in a town of fifty thousand inhabitants would not exceed more than three hundred dollars. The Tokyo government is going to be very scientific and progressive and he wonders what happens if government asks the people to demolish the cemetery; it would be demolish all the Buddhist temples and ancient graveyards. This became a great loss of culture and tradition of Tokyo. It would also demolish so many charming gardens with their lotus ponds and Sanskrit-lettered monuments, humpy bridges, holy groves and weirdly smiling Buddha’s statue. This seems to be a great price to pay for destroying Culex fasciatus. The author complete this prose with humorous tone that he wish to be born as a mosquito after his death and buried in the states of Jiki-Ketsu-gaki’s one of the beautiful graveyards. If he had done any sin in his lives that he wants to be reincarnated in a beautiful bamboo flower vessel as a tiny mosquito with its thin song and bite some of the people whom he knows.