The story was originally a play for kabuki theater called Yotsuya Kaidan, and was written in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Several versions of this story exist. The one most commonly told begins with a young girl named Oume who falls in love with the married samurai Tamiya Iemon. Her friends try to get rid of his wife Oiwa with a gift of a poisonous face cream. This does not kill Oiwa, but it does ruin her face. Iemon eventually abandons his mutilated wife in disgust, which makes her go mad with grief. In her hysteria, she stumbles over and lands upon an open sword. She curses Iemon with her dying breath and then adopts various forms in order to haunt him, including a paper lantern. In another version, unemployed samurai Iemon marries a daughter from a warrior family, who needs a man to succeed their family name. He poisons and kills his young wife, and she haunts Iemon as a ghost. In another alternative, Iemon wants to kill his wife and to marry into a wealthy family, so he hires an assassin who kills her and dumps her body into a river. One more version states that Oiwa gets smallpox as a child which mutilates her face. Although her husband Iemon doesn’t mind her appearance, his master wants him to divorce her and marry his granddaughter instead. When Iemon concedes and does as his master wishes, Oiwa dies and turns into a ghost, cursing the family.
Alias Oiwa
Real Names/Alt Names The Ghost of Oiwa (Oiwa-san), The Lantern Ghost; Alt: Iwa, Yotsuya Kaidan, Chōchin-obake
Appearance List Kabuki: Tsuruya Nanboku IV (東海道四谷怪談, 1825）— first staging of the Oiwa ghost tale. Prints: The Ghost of Oiwa by Shunkosai Hokushu (1826), New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, One Hundred Ghost Stories by Katsushika Hokusai, Ghost of Oiwa by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1836). Film: Yotsuya Kaidan (1912), also filmed some 18 times between 1913 and 1937, The New Version of the Ghost of Yotsuya (Shinshaku Yotsuya kaidan, 1949), Ghost of Yotsuya (Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan, 1959), Ghost of Yotsuya (1965)
Description The story was originally a play for kabuki theater called Yotsuya Kaidan, and was written in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV. Several versions of this story exist. The one most commonly told begins with a young girl named Oume who falls in love with the married samurai Tamiya Iemon. Her friends try to get rid of his wife Oiwa with a gift of a poisonous face cream. This does not kill Oiwa, but it does ruin her face. Iemon eventually abandons his mutilated wife in disgust, which makes her go mad with grief. In her hysteria, she stumbles over and lands upon an open sword. She curses Iemon with her dying breath and then adopts various forms in order to haunt him, including a paper lantern. In another version, unemployed samurai Iemon marries a daughter from a warrior family, who needs a man to succeed their family name. He poisons and kills his young wife, and she haunts Iemon as a ghost. In another alternative, Iemon wants to kill his wife and to marry into a wealthy family, so he hires an assassin who kills her and dumps her body into a river. One more version states that Oiwa gets smallpox as a child which mutilates her face. Although her husband Iemon doesn’t mind her appearance, his master wants him to divorce her and marry his granddaughter instead. When Iemon concedes and does as his master wishes, Oiwa dies and turns into a ghost, cursing the family.
