Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima, born Kimitake Hiraoka, was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman and benefactor Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion as well as the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel.

About Yukio Mishima in brief

Summary Yukio MishimaYukio Mishima, born Kimitake Hiraoka, was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman and benefactor Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion as well as the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. Mishima’s political activities were controversial, and he remains a controversial figure in modern Japan. He opposed what he saw as western-style materialism, along with Japan’s postwar democracy, globalism, and communism. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to rise up and overthrow Japan’s 1947 Constitution, which he called \”a constitution of defeat. \” When this was unsuccessful, he committed seppuku. He is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. His work is characterized by its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death. He also raided his father’s room for evidence of an interest in literature, and often ripped his manuscripts apart to evidence of his son’s interest in his work.

He spent much of his time alone, with female dolls, or with female cousins and cousins and their cousins. His father Azusa, a government official, forbade him to engage in any kind of sport, sport, or play with other boys. His grandmother, Natsuko, was prone to violent outbursts, which are occasionally alluded to in Mishima’s works. He had a younger sister, Mitsuko, who died of typhus in 1945 at the age of 17, and a younger brother, Chiyuki. Mishima received his birth nameKimitake in honor of Furuichi Kōi who was a benefactor of his grandfather Sadatarō. He has a younger daughter, Shizue, who was the daughter of the 5th principal of the Kaisei Academy. Through his grandmother, he was a direct descendant of the founder of Tokugawa Shogunate Tokugawas Ieyasu. His maternal grandfather was a scholar of the Chinese classics, Kenzō Hashi, and the Hashi family had served the Maeda clan for generations in Kaga Domain. His paternal grandparents were Sadataro Hiraokas, and his grandfather, Tazaemon Hiraukas, had been farmers. His mother, Azusa had employed parenting tactics such as holding his child up to the side of a speeding train and holding his little brother up to a window to keep him from falling off.