japanese litreture

1. The Concepts of "Consciousness"
and "Determination" in Yukio
Mishima's Spring Snow and The
Decay of the Angle Novels
Dr.Nareeman Jabbar Rasheed

2. Aims of the Study:
1. This Study is concerned to show Yukio's
concept of determination and consciousness
and their relationship to the Japanese novel
history.
2. We like to highlight features of the Japanese
novels through studying Yukio's selected
novels of Spring Snow and The Decay of the
Angle since he represents one of Japan
prominent novel writers.

3. Procedure:
Shed light on:
• his early childhood,
• his post-war literature,
• his private life,
• Sketch history periods of Japanese literature to
identify Yukio's period.
• his prominent themes of "consciousness" and
"determination“, and their role of Japanese future.

4. Yukio Mishima CV
• The most important Japanese novelist, author,
poet, playwright, actor, and film director of
the 20th century,
• Nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in
Literature
• Focused on the themes of sexuality, death,
and political change.
•Passed away at the age of only 46.

5. Early Childhood
• After six years at school, Yukio became the
youngest member of the editorial board .
• At twelve, he began to write his first stories.
He deeply read the works of numerous classic
Japanese authors in addition to Raymond
Radiguet, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and
other European authors, both in translation
and in the original.

6. Post-war Literature
• After the age of 24, Yukio wrote 34 novels,
almost 200 short stories, 70 plays, and
countless essays, poems, interviews.

7. His Private Life
• Liked weight training
• Formed the("shield society"), a
private militia composed primarily of young
students who studied martial principles and
physical discipline, and swore to protect
the Emperor of Japan (referring to the abstract
essence of Japan)
• He adopted the code of Samurai in an attempt to
inspire younger people, and give them a sense of
order and responsibility"

8. History of Japanese Literature
• The earliest Japanese literature work goes back to the sixth
century AD
• Between the 4th and 8th c. A.D. Japanese Literature became
written
• (794-1192): Japanese were affected by the Chinese
literature till exchanges stopped between Japan and China
• (1192-1333): Novels about war became popular
• (1333-1603): Literature here presented pictures about the
Sumurai men together with their style of military life.
• 1603 upwards: Japanese novels were open the effect of the
west in the last half of the 20th c. Japanese novelists then
tried to re-establish the identity of their literary writings.
• Yukio Mishima is within the last period.

9. Consciousness, Determination and Japan
Future
• Consciousness: an awareness of one's own existence;
the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual
or of an aggregate of people;
awareness of internal knowledge;
• In Japanese viewpoint, consciousness should control
man's determination in fulfilling future actions
• Opening to the western life was first positive in the
different fields of Japanese life, but then it became
negative: Japanese determination to fulfill speed
progress without adhering this determination to the
consciousness of the consequences of this would result
in danger of collapsing Japan future

10. Consciousness, Determination in
Yukio’s two Selected Novels
• Yukio's focused on the
consciousness of Japan history and
future
• He reflected this idea in the
characters of his novels, especially
his last The Sea of
Fertility tetralogy consisting of 4
novels

11. Spring Snow (1969)
• In the first novel of this tetra logy, namely
Spring Snow (1969) Kiyoaki the protagonist
represents the raving determination that lacks
consciousness. So, his end was death in the
twenties of his life after a long suffer with life

12. The decay of the Angle (1971)
• the hero Toru represents self consciousness
that thinks of nobody except himself. So,
determination is transformed to a weapon of
killing others. He spent most of his time
mediating, making himself seeing nobody in
front of except himself. So, he isolated himself
from comprehending the existence. This led
him commit himself ,but he did not die. He
lost his sight.

13. Hero of the whole tetralogy
• Honda, hero of the whole tetralogy, had both
consciousness and determination . he was young and
wished to live a promising life. He was decisive
concerning what to do in the next future. He was calm,
rational, of the latter's consciousness which took him
away from the world Honda tried to lead him in. Honda
knows well that each human being has his importance
in this existence , so he should think well before he
decided for himself a future action. So, Honda enabled
himself to build his existence through his knowledge
that he could contribute in building the human
existence structure. Thus, he made use of his life till
the last moments of his life.

14. Conclusion
• Yukio was in an opposition to be affected by the western culture.
People , for him, should have both consciousness and
determination that work in harmony with each other to build a
positive successful future for Japan. Through studying both of his
novels Spring Snow and The Decay of the Angle we examined how
Yukio presented pictures of human loss that is reflected negatively
on the society's future. Yukio worked hard to expose the
consequences behind human uncontrolled behavior. So , he showed
that human beings in general and the Japanese in particular should
start from his culture, and work hard to maintain his authenticity.
The western American invasion of Japan and other countries
resulted in obliterating their landmarks, and abolishing their
identity. Thus, Yukio asserted that consciousness and
determination should exist together so as to build a successful
future for the country's own state.
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