Why The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea
“Only through the group, I realized — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain. The group must be open to death — which meant, of course, that it must be a community of warriors” (Mishima). Yukio Mishima strived to create a community of warriors, samurais, to fight for the preservation of Japan’s Eastern culture. Mishima was constantly told he was “special” and based his life on the Samurai Code: “Bushido” meaning “the way of the warrior”. Yukio Mishima stresses Bushido’s virtues, loyalty and honor, in his novel The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea through the group of boys’ hierarchy and actions in order to rally the Japanese audience to
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Unlike the Western culture, where youth and life are praised, the samurai holds an honorable death at a higher importance than life (Bushido Code: 7 Virtues). The only way for a samurai to stay honorable even in death is to commit suicide, Seppuku, executed by utilizing a tanto or a wakizashi to stab and slice oneselfs own abdomen from left to right followed by a kaishakunin performing decapitation (May). Mishima states “the scissors were magnificent in their cold, intellectual dignity: Noboru couldn’t imagine a more appropriate weapon for the Chief” (Mishima 60). Sepukku was also utilized as an honorable capital punishment which is depicted by the boys killing of the cat where the scissor’s blades represent the tanto or wakizashi weapon. “The chief pierced the skin at the chest with the point of the blade and scissor a long cut to the throat” (Mishima 60). The act of killing the cat helped the boys understand how to execute an honorable death. After the cat’s death “a distant hand reached into Noboru’s dream and awarded him a snow- white certificate of merit- I can do anything, no matter how awful” (Mishima 61). This reflects Mishima’s own belief that anything and everything should be done to bring back Japan’s old traditions and culture including the future death of
Unlike the Western culture, where youth and life are praised, the samurai holds an honorable death at a higher importance than life (Bushido Code: 7 Virtues). The only way for a samurai to stay honorable even in death is to commit suicide, Seppuku, executed by utilizing a tanto or a wakizashi to stab and slice oneselfs own abdomen from left to right followed by a kaishakunin performing decapitation (May). Mishima states “the scissors were magnificent in their cold, intellectual dignity: Noboru couldn’t imagine a more appropriate weapon for the Chief” (Mishima 60). Sepukku was also utilized as an honorable capital punishment which is depicted by the boys killing of the cat where the scissor’s blades represent the tanto or wakizashi weapon. “The chief pierced the skin at the chest with the point of the blade and scissor a long cut to the throat” (Mishima 60). The act of killing the cat helped the boys understand how to execute an honorable death. After the cat’s death “a distant hand reached into Noboru’s dream and awarded him a snow- white certificate of merit- I can do anything, no matter how awful” (Mishima 61). This reflects Mishima’s own belief that anything and everything should be done to bring back Japan’s old traditions and culture including the future death of