The Conflicted Mishima
Kimitake Hiraoka or his pen name, Yukio
Mishima, remains one of Japan’s most controversial and celebrated writers, a man
who said and did a lot, whose actions and words at times seemed to contradict
each other. One could argue that the conflicted Mishima represented the country
of Japan in search of their national identity during the 20th
century, especially after the World War. He wrote about 34 novels, 50 plays,
and 25 books of short stories. Mishima’s talent in writing was so profound and
as a result, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature three
times. However, he never won it. He also produced a film, direct plays, and did some modeling
and acting. In the Japanese world of art, he was considered to be all-rounded.
On November 25, 1970, novelist,
playwright, and actor Yukio Mishima stood on a balcony in front of some one
thousand servicemen at the Tokyo command of the Eastern Headquarters of Japan’s
Ground Self-Defence Forces. Here, he made a speech, trying to persuade the
public to rise up to restore the power of the Emperor of Japan and to oppose
the Japan’s post-war Constituition. Up to this day, no one knows what was on
his mind or what was his plan. He then returned to the room in the building
where he and four followers had kept a commandant hostage and barricaded
themselves and proceeded to perform hara-kiri
(ritual Japanese suicide). It is a ceremonial suicide by disembowelment or
slicing open the abdomen with a sword. He had his follower cut
his head after he sliced his stomach to speed the process up. On this day also,
before he performed the “failed” coup d’état, he had delivered the final
installation (“The Decay of The Angel”) of his well-known tetralogy, “The Sea
of Fertility”, to his publishers.
Mishima’s work is characterized by
the beautiful fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary
styles. The words he used were gorgeous, the vocabulary luxurious, and the
usage of metaphors was pulled off by him very beautifully. The novel which
kicked off his wonderful literary career was “Confessions of a Mask”. It tells
the story of a boy, Kochan, struggling to come to terms with his sexuality in
wartime Japan. The story mostly consists of him trying to understand and
conceal his desires. Mishima wrote this book when he was 19 and although he
never said it, it is known that the book was autobiographical. For me, when I
first read it, the weird thing about this particular book is the details he
told about Kochan’s desire, which include his arousal towards young men and death.
Yes, death. Kochan’s desire revolves around fantasies of death, violence, and
especially, his fascinations of the perfect masculine body of Roman sculptures, but with arrows piercing through them and blood.
Despite all that, Kochan tried hard to be “normal” and even dated a girl.
Later in his life, he wrote “Sun
and Steel”. This book of essay consists of 100 pages of uninterrupted
metaphysical introspection about the relationship between words, abstractions,
symbols, and body. It tells about his contemplations of life, death and beyond.
For me, this book shows why he is considered as the modern-day samurai and
also, the last samurai of Japan. He used sun and steel as metaphors to
elucidate enlightenment and body and that they both can sometimes be tangled up
together. He emphasized why it was important for him to die in a beautiful and
muscular “vessel” or body. Mishima wanted to affirm life in death; existence
through its negation; most importantly, he wanted to affirm the awareness of
the body by the blade of the sword as a mean to transcend the body through
death for the immortality. It showcases the thought of a man who glorify the
tradition of “Bushido” (the code of
honor and morals of the Japanese Samurai). It also explains why later in his
life, Mishima became a bodybuilder.
In my opinion, these two books
represent both the feminine and masculinity sides of Yukio Mishima and it shows
how conflicted he was with himself and the things he believed in. Same goes
with his stance on the westernization of Japan. He despised the West’s influences
either on politics or arts but yet, his work was inspired by Western
literature, and he also had quite the number of references of Western authors’
work such as Andersen’s “The Nightingale” in his work. Even his life style had
many distinctive Western elements. Mishima lived in an Italian styled villa in
Tokyo, had decorations of baroque and rococo art objects, sent his wife to a
Western cooking school, and could as well communicate with the Westerners
through English and German. Had a wife but still he was seen quite often at his
favorite gay bar in Tokyo. He was a man torn between two worlds.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading his books
and I think he was a great writer and thinker. One who dared to challenge the
normal way of thinking about life. I think that sometimes the West get
confused between militarism and Samurai or the Samurai way of life. As someone
who is not American, I have experienced this period of confusion too when my
country, Malaysia, was being westernized. It was a period when everyone seemed
to have lost their identities just like the country itself, searching hard for
its own identity. There are articles by some in the internet spreading hate
towards Mishima and I think it is unjust. What I think we should do is to appreciate
his talent and work. The Japanese had their way of defining things and I just
think that it is wrong for someone from the other side, trying to impose their
beliefs and opinions on them. My country was colonized for about 500 years up
until 1957 and there were good and bad things happened. When they decided to
let us free, by that time, all my nation’s resources, including natural
resources had dried up. They drained away everything, and I understand why Mishima
believed that Japanese people are entitled to define their own way of lives,
and not to depend on others.
Prior to the hara-kiri, he always spoke about death as if he was glorifying it.
In the “Confessions of a mask”, Kochan dreamt of being killed in the war. In
real life, Kochan was against the war but at the same time he wanted to die
amongst the soldiers. There is a big difference between advocating war and wanting
to sacrifice for the nation. Mishima managed to write a poem some time before
the day he died. It was a death poem, it goes like this:
“A small night storm blows,
Saying ‘falling is the essence of a
flower’
Preeceding those who hesitate”
Many people think that he actually
planned the hara-kiri. He emphasized
about it a lot in his novels. In my opinion, I think he had figured everything out. He knew the public would not be on his side but still proceeded because he wanted to leave a strong message to the people of Japan. One can argue that "Sun and Steel" is like his manifesto or one of his plannings to perform what he did on the day November 25, 1970, exactly like how it happened. He showed a lot of times, in his books and interviews the desire to die in a very beautiful body, and he achieved it. He wrote a lot about hara-kiri and seppuku.
Maybe he did plan everything, but the motive is still not known. Was it a very determined political sacrifice? Or was it to make a statement in the form of art? As a final touch of his greatest work of art: himself. Only Mishima himself knows and he is no longer here. On the day he
passed away, he finished writing the last installation of his famous tetralogy,
“The Decay of The Angel”. His last words from the book were:
“Human
life is limited, but I would like to live forever”
Questions:
1. Why do you think Mishima
was so attached to the traditional Japanese values?
2. Would you read his books
after knowing who he was and what he stood for?
3. What kind of sense of
pride did Mishima felt when he performed hara-kiri?
More information about Yukio Mishima:
-Remake of his last day - https://youtu.be/egLftA_rGCk
-Documentary by BBC - https://youtu.be/Ctufj50w9a0
Posts I commented on:
-World Building and Escapism by Austin Newell
-The Meaning of Philosophy by Engy
"Mishima wanted to affirm life in death" - well, to my western sensibility death by disembowelment is not so affirming. Nor is the proposed resurgence of Imperial Japan, which visited so much wanton and pointless death in the name of Empire.
ReplyDelete"Japanese people are entitled to define their own way of lives"-
Yes, but (adapting JS Mill's harm principle in "On Liberty") not if that takes the form of aggression and harm towards innocent others.
I confess I know very little of samurai culture, but militarism in any form is fraught with potential harm.
I don't doubt Mishima's literary and perhaps philosophical genius, just as I don't doubt Heidegger's philosophical importance. But, he was a Nazi. And Mishima, as you describe him, sounds like a Japanese nationalist/militarist. Distinctions must be observed.
Another important Japanese thinker you might be interested in studying: Kitaro Nishida, who explored William James's "pure experience"...