Essay on Confession of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima is a detailed illustration of a Japanese young man being raised up in the era of the Second World War in the early 1920s. Nicknamed Kochan as the writer indicates, he has an emerging personal experience to at least reconcile his homosexuality and the society he dwells in that is very intolerant of the same act. Kochan personally first indicate that his day of birth is still clear in his mind. The reason for being taken from his parents by his ailing grandmother is slightly disclosed. Kochan grows up, and at approximately the age of one year, the writer indicates he fell the stairs and injured his head. At the age of four, he started showing symptoms of a disease known as autointoxication, and this makes him think a lot at a young tender age.

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His struggle with homosexuality makes him live in an isolated and lonely life characterized by fantasies of sadism and death. With the dragon and knight fantasies, the boy becomes more concerned about death and individuals who live a life of tragedy. For example, in admiration of Samurai's picture, he feels the picture will even be more beautiful if Samurai appeared dead. He finds out he is attracted to men especially those from the lower class because of their little or no restraint toward them. Since the grandmother is ill, he didnt experience being brought up in a sheltered better life with a provision of all basic requirements.

Surprisingly, despite showing signs of homosexuality at the tender age, the boy tries as much as possible to live a normal life and conform to the societal beliefs and norms, to practice the correct sexual behaviors according to his gender and sex. For example, he observes a group of professional parade bearers at a festival trample over a flower garden, and he finds himself glorifying and feeling delighted by the scenario.

In his teens at puberty, he becomes more sexually active and feels more urge for sexual desires. The fantasies continue as his male form also mature up. For the first time, he ejaculates upon seeing the painting of Saint Sebastian in the process arousing sexual awakening desires finding himself masturbating upon looking at the paint. Saint Sebastian is painted to depict a very handsome Roman young person, half naked and skewed by arrows to the point of death.

In a military school which he attended, he gets attracted and crushes on an older fellow schoolmate named Omi. Kochan with time manages to lure him into that homosexual relationship. It is noted that Omi is sexually active, handsome and man enough but not very intelligent; he actually admires the strength of Omi. He follows Omi one day, and nothing much happens apart from Omi touching his cheeks, the boy continues to lust over Omi, though.

It should be noted that at this age in his teens, it is where Kochan becomes aware of his homosexuality and the sadomasochistic fantasies including fantasies of death, violence, and torture that has been disturbing him from childhood. For example, at one point he fantasizes about the act of cannibalism. He daydreams sitting in a basement somewhere waiting for dinner to be served. His hunger leads him to the kitchen to check when dinner will be served; he sees one of his classmates being led by a cook downstairs, he imagines seeing the cook strangle the student by the throat to death. The student is then stripped naked and laid on a table, he imagines being given the students dead body, and he cuts into small pieces.

Kochan brings out an idea about murder theaters where young men would battle using spears and knives aimed at the stomach to prolong the stressful pain and agony one had to go through. He figured out devices that would bring more blood pouring at the end of the scene that would amaze him. The young boy develops anemia and is seen visualizing the fantasies of death like killing a classmate and eating his flesh.

Looking at the behaviors of his peers and how he behaves he begins to think he is not normal and there is something wrong with him and his mind. The boy resolves to be a man and strives as much as possible to be accepted. He emulates the behaviors of his fellow boys and pretends to be normal. The Second World War begins, and he develops a distrustful attitude and completely struggles to suppress his sexual desire and opt for his obvious fantasy and masturbation as a relief for his sexual appetites.

As the struggle continues, he enters the university, and despite all his attempts to kill his homosexuality characteristics, he finds himself befriending another young man known as Kusano. In desperation to convince himself that he is normal, he tries to befriend Kusanos sister named Sonoko. His university sends him to go and work at a factory that builds target allied bombs but unfortunately after sometimes he is deemed not fit for the job after some drafting. And after some time he is surprisingly glad that he is attracted to her in a special way. Sonoko invites him for a family trip to visit their recruited son recently at the Barrack. He notes that upon sharing a kiss with her, he did not feel a close intimacy as anticipated.

The relationship gets to a point where the family is hopeful that he can marry Sonoko. With the fact in mind that he cant love a woman romantically he decides to opt out of that relationship. He decides to focus more on his studies but finds himself thinking of Sonoko some of the times. After two years he lures Sonoko into making a frequent visit but only as friends. He feels that it is very satisfying and gives him a piece of mind, but they realize all of a sudden that they can not just be together and satisfy each other romantic desires.

At the end of this marriage impossible relationship Sonoko is married to another man. As for the young man his struggles continue. It reaches a point that he decides to go to a house of prostitution to commit himself to homosexuality unfortunately for him it does not work. The illusion continues and at another attempt, during the second world war, he decides to throw himself at a raid of the bomb. The end of war marks the beginning of an era of peace immediately after surviving this attempt making his plans to fail.

At the end of the second world war, Kochan narrates the death of his very own close sister who died of a disease during the war. He even notes that this highly affected him because they were very close to each other. He graduates and works at a government ministry while Sonoko's husband also works for a government ministry, and so they cross each other paths so often.

By chance, he meets with Sonoko once again, and they schedule a lunch date. At that meeting, Sonoko directly confronts him and ask him if he ever at any point of his life was interested in women. She asks him why he didn't want to marry her and he vaguely gives an excuse for him being too young and wanting to finish his education first. Obviously, the answer he gives is not satisfying, and it sounds ambiguous. They then proceed to a dance club down the street filled with a big crowd. He realized he shouldn't have brought Sonoko to the club. He looks around and sees a group of energetic men talking to some young women around the club.

Eventually, he sees a man who he gets sexually aroused to, the man is a gangster type and is half naked to the waist. The man is wrapping a waistband around his body parts, and Kochan cant help but have a long glance at the man. He fantasizes that the man is going to start a fight with a fellow gangster outside the club and will be brought back with a knife cut and his body half covered by blood. He then realized he couldn't hide anymore from the reality of his sexuality. Sonoko realizes he is attracted to the man and finally finds the answer to her question why Kochan could not marry her. He and Sonoko part ways.

This novel is regarded to be one of the most interesting novels ofMishima as most of his interpreters point out this book was intentionally written autobiography to finally make him accept the person he is as an adult. The story mainly focusses on the life of the main character from a young tender age up to a point where at his age he cannot feel any passion, especially for women unless theyre sadomasochistic fantasies.

An example of a mask which Kochan wears is his quest for normality. Throughout the novel, he tries to put himself and assume the act of being like his classmates, a normal young man as others. He tries to force himself to fall in love with women as people around him have always had these romantic relationships with opposite sex. After all his experience at the brothel and with Sonoko he comes to a conclusion that he cant fall in love with anyone. He even tells himself that he thinks he is not even human. Therefore, this book highly gave an insight into the direction that the personal life of the writer and the main character will eventually acquire.

Works Cited

BIBLIOGRAPHY Yukio, Mishima. Confession of a Mask. New Direction Publishing Corporation. New York, United State, 1958.