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Yukio Mishima's influence
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In The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima creates an exquisite story which has strong idealistic and mythic features. Although Mishima writes of young love and tranquility in The Sound of Waves, his later works are categorized as aggressive and containing violent sexual actions. Even Mishima himself referred to The Sound of Waves as "that great joke on the public" (qtd. in Ishiguro 385). However, one cannot compare this novel to Mishima’s other literary pieces; in order to classify it as romanticized, one must evaluate the usage of imagery, an idealized setting, mythical allusions, and characterizations which establish the romantic-driven qualities in The Sound of Waves.
It is apparent that nature plays a major role throughout The Sound of Waves, as the reader would expect from a Japanese based novel. The reader is first introduced to Shinji at the “flight of stone steps” with “peace blossoms blooming in the shrine garden, dim and wrapped in twilight” (Mishima 6). Mishima’s usage of nature helps reinforce the purity of love between Shinji and Hatsue. On their first encounter, “the sea below them [brims] with a last afterglow” (50) and “the stars [begin] to glitter” (51). Hatsue’s kiss is even compared to seaweed and the “sharp, fresh saltiness” (67) of the sea; these symbols emphasize a parallel between romance and romance.
Mishima also creates the aspect of nature relating to emotion and frequently references weather imagery to convey the thoughts and emotions of Shinji. In particular, when Shinji sees Hatsue naked at the observation tower. During their meeting, a storm is brewing and the waves are “ragging and ripping out...” (70); this mirrors the sexual tension of Shinji. According to Napier, "the language of this passage underli...
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...s, the reader can conclude that Mishima has created a novel, which contains idealized and mythic features, which emphasize the love story between Shinji and Hatsue. Mishima develops a relationship between nature and romance, creates an idealized setting and gives heroic traits to nature and Shinji. Overall, The Sound of Waves contains several unrealistic, but hopeful events, such as nature saving Hatsue from rape; therefore one can classify this novel as romanticized.
Works Cited
1. Mishima, Yukio. The Sound of Waves. Trans. Meredith Weatherby. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1956. Print.
2. Napier, Susan J. Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. Cambridge Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies Harvard U, 1991. Print.
3. Shabecoff, Philip. "Everyone in Japan Has Heard of Him." NY Times. N.p., 2 Aug. 1970. Web. 26 May 2014.
Mori, Taisanboku, et al. Poets Behind Barbed Wire. Eds. Jiro Nakano and Kav Nakano. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 1983.
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
Murakami portrays the wave as a symbol for his fear when he writes, “In my case, it was a wave”(356). The narrator explains that his fear has taken the shape of a wave. The reason that the author uses this symbol is so that the main character has a physical object that he can face to get rid of his fears. The narrator describes his friend’s pictures as a symbol for the memories that they had together, “I found myself steeped in warm memories. The deep feelings of the boy K. were there in his pictures…”(367). When he sees the pictures K. drew, the author vividly remembers all of the great memories that he and K. had. It is through these drawings that the narrator ultimately realizes that he must face his fear in order to put his life back together. Some might say that these examples are not symbols, but are meant to be taken literally. These examples are symbols because the wave was not literally the narrator’s fear, but it was the fact that his friend died from a wave that haunted him. Also, the pictures that K. drew are not a literal memory of their relationship, but they connect the narrator to those memories. Overall, the use of symbolism furthers the theme of facing one’s
Gatten, Aileen. "Review: Criticism and the Genji." The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 22.1 (1988): 84. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Searing the mind with stunning images while seducing with radiant prose, this brilliant first novel is a story of damaged lives and the indestructibility of the human spirit. It speaks about loss, about the urgency, pain and ultimate healing power of memory, andabout the redemptive power of love. Its characters come to understand the
Riichi, Yokomitsu. Shanghai. Michigan: The Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan , 2001.
Ogawa, D. (1993) The Japanese of Los Angeles. Journal of Asian and African Studies, v19, pp.142-3.
Over the course of Japanese history, arguably, no artist is more famous for their works than Katsushika Hokusai. During his 88 years of life, he produced over 30,000 pieces of artwork, and heavily influenced Western styles of art. His most famous piece was created around 1831, a Japanese styled piece titled, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. This piece has stood as a defining piece of artwork in the Japanese culture for over 180 years, analyzed by students and authors for the interpretations filling the paper. The relationship between Hokusai’s painting has directly affected the Western point of view of Japanese style. The English author, Herbert Read’s novel interprets the painting distinctly differently from a Japanese point, American poet,
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Since its establishment, surrealist media has been able to capture our attention with its abstract thought provoking nature. It began with literature and spread to all other forms of expression across the globe. Although it had gained such renown, it wasn’t until The Second Bakery Attack was released in a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami that surrealist literature arrived in Japan. The Second Bakery Attack stood out above all other literary releases of its time, receiving universally positive reviews and revolutionizing the way Japan viewed literature. The story is set in modern times, revolving around a newlywed couple who awake one night with a strange and powerful hunger. The narrator is the husband, speaking in the first person, he dictates his thoughts on the events as they unfold. The couple soon set out on a mission to rob a bakery in order to break their “curse” of hunger. Throughout the story, strange situations arise, which the husband convinces himself are normal aspects of married life. In order to clarify the husband’s feeling towards his wife, Murakami uses a vivid, metaphoric image of a volcano beneath the sea. By using a unique and original postmodern surrealist style and descriptive imagery in the short story The Second Bakery Attack, Haruki Murakami was able to give birth to a new era of surrealist literature in Japan. This originality served to break away from the realism of the traditional Japanese I-novel and appeal to the Japanese people of the time who desired literature with more of a western approach.
Cultural Contradictions: An Analysis of Contrasting Elements in Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
• Mishima, Yukio. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Trans. John Nathan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1965.
In line with the feeble and vulnerable portrait of human beings, nature is described as dangerous and uncontrollable on the one hand; beautiful on the other. The tone of the waves is "thunderous and mighty" and the gulls are looked upon as "uncanny and sinister.
In this poem, the author tells of a lost love. In order to convey his overwhelming feelings, Heaney tries to describe his emotions through something familiar to everyone. He uses the sea as a metaphor for love, and is able to carry this metaphor throughout the poem. The metaphor is constructed of both obvious and connotative diction, which connect the sea and the emotions of love.
Gamble, Adam, and Takesato Watanabe. A Public Betrayed: An inside Look at Japanese Media Atrocities and Their Warnings to the West. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub., 2004. Print.