Great Minds Think Alike A Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishimo and Romeo and Juilet by Shakespeare

The male protagonists, Shinji and Romeo have many differences. Hatsue and Juliet are perhaps not as different from each other than Shinji is to Romeo but still, the distinctions are abundant, as are the resemblances. Both young women seem to be a puppet of their families. Without consulting her first, Juliet’s father chooses Paris to be his daughter’s groom. Juliet obviously despises Paris and loathes the very thought of their marriage, stating that she would rather leap off the battlements of any tower, walk in dark alleyways, be chained to roaring bears, or hide in a mortuary covered with dead men’s stinking limbs and rotting bones (4.1.78-90). Hatsue, too, is forced unwillingly to marry someone whom she obviously has no interest in: Yasuo Kawamoto. When Shinji asks about the marriage on page twenty-two, Hatsue dismisses it with a laugh and says “Silly! It’s a big lie.” It indicates that Hatsue is looking forward to be bonded in holy matrimony with Yasuo about as much as Juliet is looking forward to the day that makes her the wife of Paris. Juliet’s family is wealthy, and so has the adequate amount of money to go through with the wedding. Also, in those days, it was common for fathers to marry off their daughters to a stranger of his choosing. The reader discovers that Hatsue’s family is also wealthy, her father being “Terukichi Miyata, the wealthy owner of two coasting freighters chartered to Yamagawa Transport” (page thirteen). These two rich and noble men both marry off their daughters to a stranger. It is obvious through this that the daughters, Hatsue and Juliet, are merely puppets to their fathers. To bolster this piece of evidence even more, Yukio Mishima reveals in a paragraph on page thirteen that Hatsue was sold becaus...

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... Shinji and Hatsue were together for the village’s gossip to feed on. Later, Chikoyo feels guilty and on page sixty-eight, “she went on to say that unless Shinji and Hatsue finally found their happiness, she herself would be too ashamed ever to come back to the island”. Ultimately, it is through Chikoyo’s threat that the women of the village go to confront Hatsue’s father and discover that Shinji and Hatsue can indeed be together. Chikoyo, therefore, can be held responsible for indirectly protecting the couple, much like Friar Lawrence did for Romeo and Juliet. Although the trouble did indeed start from Friar Lawrence and Chikoyo (the former married Romeo and Juliet and the latter spread gossip about Shinji and Hatsue), both characters attempt to help the couple but unfortunately, had very opposite outcomes.

Works Cited

The Sound of Waves

Romeo and Juliet