Temple of the Golden Pavilion into Japan - Essay Example

Lecture: Mishima Yukio’s literature Introduction In the story of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, born on an isolate regions to poor parents, Mizoguchi is a young acolyte studying to become a Buddhist priest at the Zen temple of Kinkakuji. He has lived a very troubled life since a tender age, and when he becomes an adult learns about this Temple. The Temple is regarded as a very treasured place in the history of Japan. The story narrates how he feels isolated, lonely, and friendless. He is also physically weak and does not think he is good looking, but soon Kinkakuji the beautiful Temple changes his life and he becomes ambitious and so drawn to it. Mizoguchi slowly became obsessed with anything beautiful that could be seen and found in the temple (Manoff). At first he is quite discouraged by different issues including seeing his mother sleep with another man before his dying father, and he is feeling awfully shuttered by those actions. He ends up very angry about so many things in life, he even finds it hard to communicate with the rest of the world, and eventually his mind is filled with so much evil and negative things. First, he thinks of the idea to burn down the temple and die in the fire but his plan fails since he is not courageous enough (Manoff). Body Mizoguchi wants to commit suicide because his plan to die in the temple fire has not worked He fails for the second time. He eventually turns himself in to the police. When he has become so obsessed with destroying any beautiful thing that he comes across, his behavior changes drastically in the sense that he has gotten into things like drugs, alcohol, gambling and even theft. He stops going to school, and is generally behaving in a manner that portrays only self-destruction. His negative view of the beauty comes in much later after he meets other people like his very evil friend kashiwagi. Kashiwagi comes into Mizoguchi’s life and poisons his mind by giving him ideas such as “faith cannot make life bearable, but only knowledge” he undermines Misoguchi’s faith in the beauty and purity of the temple which he so much would love to become it’s future superior (Manoff). Mizoguchi slowly starts to realize that he cannot attain the quality of being the superior in the Temple and starts to feel mocked by the same beauty that he admired at first. He then ends up frustrated and that is when the idea of torching the Temple gets into his mind. Mizoguchi like most of Mishima’s characters longs to live a life that is entrenched or rooted in past of Japanese culture. According to some biographers, this is Mishima’s credited artistic favorite. From the time Mishima was still very young, and his grandmother Natsu was a great influence to him, she put Japanese past in her grandson’s mind. Mishima would always desire the shaky way of life that seem to have been lived by the people of that era. The thought that a person’s life could just end suddenly, had an unusual appeal for him, and this was the reason he puts brought out brutal deaths in a romantic manner especially when the victim of death is young (Fitzgerald). Mishima always felt that the reason he did not die in the Second Word War, was because he had been cheated of something. At one time, in his life, Mishima meant to join the military forces in his country and when the fears of dying in the service during the Second World War engulfed him, he tricked a military doctor into believing that he was suffering from tuberculosis and was not in good shape for the services. His case was later considered by the doctor and he never stopped blaming himself later in life, as he felt he had betrayed his country as Japanese. Mishima was released and he went home happily. According to the biographers Mishima throughout the rest of his life never stopped regretting his failure to join the military because, through it he would have achieved the glory in his life that he would have achieved by dying in a battlefield for his country as a natural culture of the Japanese men who love their country. When he had that opportunity to die for his country, he fled from it. All the Japanese men living in Japan during the Second World War and had been drafted for military service were considered imperial order to die. “The red paper” was the name given to the draft notice. This was because anytime someone’s draft notice arrived, the form was written with blood red color (McDonald 120). After World War II had a permanent impact on Mishima, he felt that he was going to for his country, in one way or another. He began to read the Japanese classics. He linked himself with the Bungei Bunka group, which believed in holy war. Mishima was The Japanese Romanticists were another literary group avowing the same principles with which Mishima was in touch with the Japanese Romanticists, which was also a literary group. He spoke of the Samurai ethos: "To keep death in mind from day to day, to center each minute upon, predictable death. He called it the beautiful death, as he always dreamt of his ability to fight as a man. Mishima started training at an army camp. In the spirit of Bunburyodo, Mishima's novels plotted the course of his life. In 1967, Runaway Horses had as its hero a right-wing terrorist who commits hara-kiri after stabbing to death a businessperson. He became the first Japanese author to achieve international fame (Fitzgerald). Conclusion These characters are odd and frequently disturbed. The opinion of the author in these books gives the reader a chance to trail a life of a troubled individual, as he discloses more and more of his unstable mind. By the time he burns down the temple, it is not easy to know how much of what is happening in Mizoguchi’s mind is realistic and how much is unrealistic. After Mishima’s characters have hallucinated for long ending up with wrong decisions, their minds start changing for the opposite of their initial plans and wishes. They end up dreading what they once wished and longed to do in life. Both the character in Mishima’s novel and Mishima himself are seen pursuing, different things and they end up doing different things (McDonald 110). People frequently ask why some people carry out terror actions and other related things. This book could be of good use in such an era of terrorism. This question about why terrorist do what they do come up because many people do not understand why someone would just wake up and go killing innocent people. It is the desperation, frustrations and hopelessness in them. Reading the book can make one realize that if a person going through all these things, their minds would automatically turn to wicked acts. It is a novel that is psychological, showing the mind going through a procedure on the road to evil, and it is just natural that the major part of the story happens in the mind, it teaches us that about how a mind that is not at ease and cause the stress, frustrations and irritation. It is all in the mind and it starts to control those feelings, as the victim sees no hope in life, he finds himself caring less and taking very irresponsible actions (Manoff). Men who die as heroes are those that terminate their lives as serious men that is according to the Japanese. Mishima had the same in mind and he knew that when a man who means business dies, it meant ending of one’s life. Mishima wanted to fulfill his fate according to the ways of samurai at the final stages of his life. After forming and leading his army for while. He finally went on and performed and committed a Hara-Kiri, where one chooses when, and where he wants to die. This, he believed was the best way and one would die happily if he commits that kind of death (McDonald 155). Works cited Fitzgerald, Jason. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion: Kanagawa Arts Theatre at the Rose Theater as part of Lincoln Center Festival 2011, July 22, 2011. Retrieved on 1st, Oct, 2011 from Genzlinger, Neil. Pyrotechnics Aplenty in a Tale of Madness. The New York Times, July 22, 2011. Retrieved on 1st, Oct, 2011 Manoff, Morgan, "The Confessional Hero of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion.” Undergraduate Research Symposium. 2006 McDonald, Keiko. From book to screen: modern Japanese literature in film. New York, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Print (can be found in Google books) Read More