In fact, Mishima's novel, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, can be read as an answer to the following question: “Since it [the solution] will be based on neither pacifism nor ultranationalism, what will it be?” (Mishima, “An Ideology” 80).
Postwar Japan and Mishima's Solution
Although the answer is not as straightforward as most readers would like, Mishima’s response to the cultural and political malaise of the postwar era reveals a far-reaching comprehension of war and its effect on Japanese society in the modern era. In addition, Mishima grapples with the complex interplay between masculinity and war in a country that suffered a humiliating defeat and occupation by foreign forces.
Mishima and Japanese Masculinity
War, in Mishima’s view, is a positive force that propels Japanese society, especially its masculine citizens; without it, the nation inevitably slides into decline. In Mishima’s essay “An Ideology for an Age of Languid Peace,” the author explains this ideology: peace made the Japanese people complacent and lethargic, while war energized the nation because the people were constantly aware that they were living in danger, and it is this “impulse of death” that gives an urgency and meaning to everyday actions and life.
In fact, Mishima consistently associates his version of the military masculine ideal with death throughout the novel. Action, whether through war or individual deeds, is vital in a well-ordered society, and Mishima consistently shows this principle throughout the novel. When Kashiwagi confronts Mizoguchi with the truth about Tsurukawa’s death, the former asserts that “What transforms this world is—knowledge” (215).
Susan Napier helpfully expands on Kashiwagi’s assessment by stating that the character’s overall purpose is to illustrate that “knowledge rather than action is the more appropriate response to the ruined world of postwar Japan” (117).
Obviously, military action had failed to accomplish Japan’s aims, so Kashiwagi’s suggestion that knowledge is the answer appears logical in that context. However, Mizoguchi counters Kashiwagi’s assertion by declaring “What transforms the world is action. There’s nothing else” (216). Whether Mishima here is entirely discounting the relevance of knowledge is debatable; action, however, is clearly seen as having a redemptive force, even at the end of the novel when Mizoguchi hesitates to carry out his plan to destroy the temple.
Therefore, in the first part of Temple, war drives the plot by giving meaning to the characters’ lives and illustrating a type of masculine ideal; however, once the war is over, it is the protagonist, Mizoguchi, who realizes the importance of individual action and revitalizes both his own life and the reader’s perception of masculinity by undertaking the revolutionary action of burning down the temple.
References:
Mishima, Yukio. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Trans. Ivan Morris. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. “An Ideology for an Age of Languid Peace.” Japan Interpreter 7.1 (1971): 79-80.
Napier, Susan J. Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of
Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.
Sara Dustin - Sara Dustin is a Ph.D. student and university instructor. As an undergraduate, she double majored in English and history at Presbyterian ...
