Who Dunnit
It is hard to figure out who actually killed the husband. Each person claims something different. Society dictates that we think that it is the criminal. Even in the story his confession comes first. He is the first one we are exposed to as being the murderer. The criminals story makes since for a bit, the wife resisting, but then he speak of the wife wanting to marry him. This made me think maybe he and the wife had some previous engagements. This was their way of taking care of the husband so they could be together. The criminals story becomes more unbelievable when he says he decided to fight the samurai. Honestly I don't know much about samurai, nor do I even know if the criminal was formally trained, but in a duel, my money would not have been on the criminal. The way that he is so up front about it, it is like he wants to die. At the end of this tale I was like, it is definitely the criminal. I did not realize that there would be other confessions.
The wife seems the most guilty to me. Perhaps she did not slay her husband, but something weird seems to be going on involving her. Perhaps she did kill her husband, but she admits to doing it. Then again, her husband admits to killing himself too through a medium. It is like the Criminal and the medium/husband are trying to cover up something for the wife's honor. They know she is the only one who will walk away from this event and they do not want her live to be ruined any more than it is. I do not think any of the testimonies are reliable enough to make a judgment on who killed the husband. Still I really think the wife is suspicious, perhaps more because she gets to live.
If there is a moral, or a united them from this tale, it is that know one can really be trusted. We all have our own motives and no one besides ourselves know what they are. I may tell you what I believe to be the truth, but compared to others who witnessed the same event, I could be wrong. Memory is a weird thing. Never trust an unreliable narrator.
