Introduction
Mishima Yukio is one of the most famous Japanese writers who is also famous for committing suicide, leaving plenty of unpublished novels, short stories and poetry behind. Her works are characterized by the increasing sensibility, attention to the details and symbols and are sometimes criticized for its homoerotic content. In some of the works Mishima Yukio wants to refresh and probably revive the memory about the traditional Japanese social system which is based on the imperial ruling.
Analysis of Confessions of Mask
The most prominent book of Mishima Yukio is called Confessions of Mask and it was written in nineteen ninety four and it clearly exposes all the characteristics mentioned above. Most of the modern critics believe that Mishima`s narration style completely characterize the Japanese literature of XX century as it is almost autobiographical, so the author expresses his own feelings, ideas, thoughts and experience. We can distinguish three main points of the book. These motifs are:
the problem of youth;
the problem of beauty;
the problem of death.
During the plot of the book, the narrator who is the protagonist of the book fight for his own decisions, struggles with not accepting of his own choice of sexuality, he also fights with the inappropriateness of his own sexuality within the area of society. In other words, he struggles with the consequences and reflections of his mind and sexual orientation.
The reason for calling the book Confessions of the Mask is that the narrator uses the psychological technique of inversion. He inverted his own views and beliefs in the way they are not mocked in the modern society. He is forced to wear a mask in order to hide his true identity, his true feelings and sexual inclinations (Mishima and Weatherby 115). In addition, he also has to wear a mask for himself, as sometimes he feels that he is disgusted. By hiding his true sexual identity, the narrator loses his personality, which brings us the life of Mishima Yukio, who also experienced such a phenomenon and prove the true to life nature of the book. Even the people who devoted their lives to the biography of Mishima claims that the author was looking for a place to erase his identity, to be fascinated with the simple things of the life, but he only found his homosexual orientation (Mishima and Weatherby 42). That is why we can observe some sort of the paradox when the book which contains a very true to life depiction of the life of the homosexual becomes very popular in the society were the homosexuality is considered a big sin which contradicts with the human nature.
The Impacts on Mishimo Yukio
We may not be sure, but our suggestion is that the homosexuality and feminine motifs of the book originated from the childhood of Mishimo Yukio. Being very young, Mishimo was “taken” from his parents by his strict grandmother, who originated from an ancient family of samurais, under the suggestions that it is very dangerous for a child to live on the upper floor. He shared many things with his grandmother, including the bedroom. According to Mishimo, his grandmother was overprotective, so she wanted to make sure that she govern the whole life of young Mishimo. Their relationships lasted for twelve years and Mishimo says that his grandmother treated him as a small flower which needed to be protected from all the outer stimuli (Scott-Stokes 112). Actually, there were some reasons for being overprotective as Yukio was quite a sickly kid who suffered from occasional hyperventilation.
The sickness and an attitude of grandmother put a reflection on his boyhood and adulthood, as in the Peers School he could not get any good marks from physical training or other related classes. Only after the death of his grandmother, he could return to a normal living with his parents and realize what really influenced him. Writing his first novel named The Forest in Full Bloom, Mishimo Yukio already knew the reasons for his sexual choices and what impact his grandmother made on him.
After the graduating and entering the Tokyo University Law Department, Mishino describes his longings as a desire to die. He longs to die on the battlefield among many strangers. But nowadays, knowing all the facts from the biography of Mishimo Yukio, we may suggest that it was just a pseudo patriotism. As a few years later, when Yukio was enrolled to a Service, he was misdiagnosed with a consumption, but he had a common cold. The spirit and mind of Mishimo is so aesthetic and longing for beauty, that it cannot allow him to go for a military service (Lilly 130). If Yukio really wanted to serve his country, he would not conceal the truth about his disease. It again demonstrates that he had to wear a Mask in order to mix in with the society and not be mocked as a person who has different prospective and opinions.
Another fact that proves Yukio`s desire not to be different from any other person is that he was married and even had two children being a homosexual. All of these were conducted in order to meet the social requirements and standards of a normal person. So his only way out of this loop was to reflect his ideas and his struggle with the public opinion in his short stories, novels and poems.
The Peculiarities of Confessions of Mask
Except of the homosexuality of the author, Confessions of Mask expresses several other inclinations and features of Mishimo Yukito. One of the brightest motifs we may notice in the book is the authors sadomasochistic and pedophile inclinations which are strongly reflected in the book. One of the characters named Ko-chan imagine the young boy from his school lying on the silver tray. This boy is his love interest, so after a few kisses in the mouth, Ko-chan rip his chest and serve him as food for unknown people. Such an act of body mutilation refers to the Japanese traditions and is an allusion for a ritual suicide named seppukku. Ancient Japanese used to believe that the sincerity of a person is situated in its stomach, so in order to detach oneself from the society, show your hate and offend the society they have to commit a seppukku (Miller 24). Yukio does not directly refers to the seppukku in this scene, but he honors the traditions of his ancestors inductively as he himself commited a seppuku at the end of his life.
Conclusion
At the conclusion, we may say that there were many factors that influenced the style, the sexual orientation and the social prospective of the author. Most of them are described in Confessions of Mask and includes his overprotective grandmother, the society that could not accept his sexual orientation and aesthetic views and the illnesses that showed him the weakness of the human nature.
Works Cited
Lilly, Mark. "Yukio Mishima: Confessions Of A Mask". Gay Men’s Literature in the Twentieth Century (1993): 127-143. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.
Miller, Henry. Reflections On The Death Of Mishima. Santa Barbara, Ca.: Capra Press, 1972. Print.
Mishima, Yukio, and Meredith Weatherby. Confessions Of A Mask. New York: New Directions, 1958. Print.
Scott-Stokes, Henry. The Life And Death Of Yukio Mishima. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Print.
