The House of Spiders is the Rashōmon-gate: a liminal space between life and death, inside and outside. Moreover, the entire story of the NAME and MEANING of Rashōmon is its own series of puns, linguistic shifts, and happenstance entanglements.
Look at this shit.
The original south gate of Kyoto, built at the end of the 8th century, is technically called Rajoumon (羅城門).
In the 15th century, the Noh play of Kanze Nobumitsu, was said to popularize an alternate rendering of the name - Rashoumon (羅生門). This is a pun, replacing the kanji for castle (城, read as 'jou', or 'sei') with the kanji for life (生, which can be read as 'sei', or 'shou'.) It's not a tower....it's power!
What is the Noh play about? It's about the demon of the Rashoumon gate. This is a folk story with NUMEROUS forms. Broadly: is a story about a plucky young samurai, Tsuna, who climbs up the ruined and unlucky gate following the rumor that a powerful oni (Ibaraki-doji) is hiding out there. He bests the demon, slicing off its arm.
Afterwards, Tsuna is given STRICT instructions to stay home with the arm for 7 days, answering the door to no-one. HOWEVER, on the last day, his dying aunt knocks at the door and begs to come in, to see the arm and pray for him. Tsuna says no. She then wails, talking about how she nursed him for years in place of his mother, and how could he be so cruel. Moved by compassion, he violates bushido and opens the door. It's the oni. Ibaraki-doji takes back his arm and flees away into the night.
In 1915, Akutagawa (he of Hell Screen) would write the short story, Rashoumon. (羅生門). But, guess what? It's not ABOUT the rashoumon demon. THIS story is about a starving man who comes to the ruined gate, not knowing what to do with his life. He sees an old woman who is desecrating dead bodies by stealing their hair. Disgusted, he's ready to choose death, but she explains that she's only robbing to survive - and besides, the people she's stealing from cheated OTHER people in life (also to survive) - so, isn't that just the way of things? There's no harm in it. The man then violently beats her, steals everything she has, and flees into the night.
In 1950, Kurosawa would direct Rashomon (the famous one). What's Rashomon about? NOT THE SHORT STORY. Rashomon, in fact, while keeping the name of the short story and a little of the framing, largely adapts a DIFFERENT Akutagawa short story, In the Grove.
As a result of this movie, we'd eventually get to the loose psychological term: "the Rashomon effect", which broadly is about the way in which memory is fucky and sometimes our subjectivity means we can recall events differently to how "they occured".
Over time, the meaning of Rajoumon/Raseimon -> Rashoumon -> Rashomon has shifted and accrued resonances along with the name. These different meanings, each prominent at different times in history, have become entangled with one another, nestling under the same shared signifier.
YEAH. YEAH. EXACTLY. ITS ABOUT MEMORY AND IDENTITY AND WHAT IS PASSED DOWN WITH A NAME.
Did you know there's more than one meaning of 'House' in both english and japanese? 家 means 'the physical home you live in', but it also means family, or lineage. Another way to think about the House of Spiders is as A Lineage of Spiders.
Finally, you wanna know what the 'Ra' (羅) in Rashoumon comes from? It's from the middle chinese for 'net for catching birds' or 'trap', which in japanese can mean a gauze or a fine silk.
Y'know, like the one Dihui Star wears as a bridal veil.
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