Yukio
Mishima (1925-1970) is regarded as one of 20th-century Japan's most
prolific writers, and was the first postwar Japanese writer to achieve
international fame.
Nominated
on three occasions for the Nobel Prize for Literature, and author of no
less than forty novels, essays, poems, and traditional Japanese kabuki
and noh dramas, Mishima’s contribution to Japanese literature was indeed
profound.
His
samurai-inspired ritual "seppuku"suicide by "hara-kiri" (literally
stomach cutting, or disembowelment) and beheading on November 25, 1970,
at the young age of 45 marked the end of a life that represented for
some, a protest against a post-war Japan that seemed to have lost its
traditional identity and values under the tide of mass consumerism, and
cultural and political Westernization.
The
sharp contrasts between the country he grew up in and the Japan he died
in were defining influences in his life, shaping his writings, which
often questioned the new Japan and harked for a return to days of old.
Born
Kimitaka Hiraoka in Tokyo on Jan 14, 1925, he assumed the nom de plume
"Yukio Mishima," cryptically interpreted as "He who chronicles reason,"
so that his disapproving anti-literary father would not know he was a
writer.
It
was however his paternal grandmother, Natsuko Hiraoka, who was to have
the most lasting impact on his life. A mere 29 days after his birth
until his 12th year, Mishima was separated from his family and raised by
his sophisticated yet capricious grandmother whose own background and
personality shaped his character.
The
young protégé was forced to live a very sheltered life in which sports,
playing with other boys, and even going out in the sun were off limits.
She was the illegitimate daughter of a Meiji era daimyo with familial
links to the all powerful Tokugawas and was reared in a princely
household, a samurai-influenced upbringing which she did not let others
forget and which instilled in her, and by consequence her grandson, a
reverence for Japan's past, and the samurai fascination with beauty,
purity and death.
Her
noble past and yet not so noble marriage to a successful bureaucrat
arguably contributed to her frustrations, characterized by violent
outbursts and morbid fixations.
Her
character had a lasting yet undeclared effect on Mishima’s later works
and personality, particularly the insatiable desire for perfection in
the mind and body, and the terrible beauty of death at the moment of
perfection exemplified by the honored cherry blossom.
Mishima's
complexities were not only confined to his writings. A fluent speaker
of English, Mishima wore Western clothes and lived in a Western style
house while espousing a return to his country’s past values and
practices.
Much
mystery also surrounds the exact nature of his sexuality, and his
frequenting of gay bars such as the now defunct Brunswick bar in Ginza
despite a rushed marriage at 33 which produced two children.
Mishima's
interest in homosexuality is clearly illustrated in one of his seminal
books, "Confessions of a Mask" (1948) where he tells of a man who
conceals his true self and sexuality behind a mask of lies and pretense.
This book is regarded by many as a semi-autobiographical account of the
author's own life.
According
to his biographers, he had also considered a marriage proposal to
Michiko Shoda, the current empress and wife of Emperor Akihito.
Biographers such as close friend John Nathan contend that the tragic
writer married not for love but for respectability.
At
the earlier age of 30, conscious of the inevitability of aging, and
desiring bodily "perfection," he embarked on a strict bodybuilding
regime that lasted for the rest of his life.
His
longing for a return to a spiritual Japan which respected the bushido
(way of the warrior) code inspired his expertise in karate and kendo,
martial arts that he contended allowed one to experience the border
between life and death.
His
extreme nationalist credentials were most notably illustrated in his
founding of the Tatenokai (Shield Society) in 1968, a small private army
of mostly university students dedicated to the bushido code and the
protection of the emperor and the martial discipline of pre-Meiji era
Japan.
This
dedication was not to Hirohito per se, whom he had criticized for
"dishonoring" the war dead by surrendering, and for renouncing his
divinity after World War II, but rather to the symbolism of the emperor
system for traditional Japan.
On
November 25, 1970, carrying with him a longing for a return to lost
samurai values, and an obsession with a purifying and beautiful death,
Mishima and four of his Tatenokai followers, entered the Japanese
Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) headquarters in Ichigaya and attempted a coup
d’etat which they hoped would awaken the Japanese from their spiritual
and political slumber.
Stepping
out onto a nearby balcony, Mishima was ridiculed and jeered as he
attempted in vain to rouse the present JSDF members below him to his
cause. Realizing the hopelessness of his efforts, the "Lost Samurai"
went back inside for his final act of drama.
Positioning
himself in traditional Japanese manner on the floor of the office which
they had seized, Mishima proceeded to ritually disembowel himself with a
“tanto” (a small sword), exclaiming “Long live the emperor” just before
a pre-ordained “kaishakunin” (the one chosen to decapitate Mishima) and
later one other, made an initially botched but ultimately effective
attempt at beheading the famed author.
Debate
surrounds Mishima’s motivations. Attempting a coup d’etat with only
four other people was almost certainly going to be a failure. Comments
made to Western journalists about hara-kiri in his writings some years
earlier might be more insightful.
At
that time, the author claimed that "spiritually, I wanted to revive
some samurai spirit. I did not want to revive hara-kiri itself but
through the vision of such a very strong vision of hara-kiri, I wanted
to inspire and stimulate younger people."
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