著者

Watt George

出版者

名古屋商科大学

雑誌

NUCB journal of language culture and communication (ISSN:13443984)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.7, no.2, pp.79-94, 2005-11

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Hurriedly inventing the nom de plume of Mishima Yukio, sixteen-year-old Hiraoka Kimitake published his first serialized story in 1941 and his first novella in the closing months of WWII. During the American Occupation(1945-1952) he produced almost 20 works. Despite this comprehensive output, he is not normally described as a "post-war writer" in any sense other than one of timing. Oe Kenzaburo, writing directly about the effects of the Hiroshima bomb, Dazai Osamu expressing national defeat through a personal nihilism, and Enchi Fumiko describing the domestic milieu in the face of scarcity, are clearly seen to be scrutinizing the post-war condition. Mishima, on the other hand, is usually described as a supreme esthete who writes highly individualistic fiction, the universal themes of which somehow exist outside place and time. This paper examines the first two major works published in the period of occupation, Confessions of a Mask(1949) and Thirst for Love(1950) and points to the need for further consideration of Forbidden Colors(published in two parts, 1951 and 1953). Though not previously acknowledged as such, Confessions is clearly part of post-war kasutori culture, the polemic of which attempts to argue for the acceptance of decadence, nihilism, and solipsism in the face of unprecedented catastrophe. Thirst for Love explains the murderous behavior of its main character by showing the connections between her individual pathology and the social tenor of early reconstruction. Both novels are about narcissism, but they are not about narcissism per se; they reveal and explore a narcissism in the context of post-war society and post-war literary culture.