《羅生門》最後一句「下人の行方は、誰も知らない」到底想表達什麼？

Question

讀完芥川龍之介的《羅生門》，最後留下老太婆一個人，只寫了「下人の行方は、誰も知らない」就結束了。這種故意不交代結局、把判斷丟給讀者的收尾方式，是芥川常用的手法嗎？還是這篇特別刻意，呼應整篇小說對人性善惡模糊地帶的探討？

Accepted Answer

It's very deliberate here. The whole story builds a logical chain where each character's 'evil' justifies the next person's — the old woman robbing corpses justifies the servant robbing her — and if Akutagawa told us where the servant ended up, it would resolve the moral ambiguity he spent the whole story building. Leaving it open forces the reader to sit with the same unresolved judgment the servant himself is making in that final moment.

Answer

而且原本《今昔物語集》的原典結局其實有寫下人後來去哪了，芥川特意刪掉這段，等於是主動選擇留白，更能證明是刻意的手法。