Confessions of a Mask, Term Paper Example

War creates upheaval. In an upheaval things float to the surface that were once buried in the bottom of the river. War forces people to face aspects of themselves they wouldn’t necessary be facing if they weren’t stripped of their preoccupations (for in war there is nothing by which to be preoccupied with). Since a person is able to focus on self-reflective tendencies, or existential crisis, identity gets brought up as it does with Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask and Mikhail’s The War Works Hard. In either work the idea of isolation occurs as seen in characters and the effects of war. This paper will seek to examine both works and the theme of isolation in either as it is addressed through each writer’s characters.

Kochan Talks about his father being transferred to Osaka and leaving the family behind, “He went alone, the rest of us remaining behind in Tokyo” (Mishima 37) and then he talks about finding art books that his father had brought back from his foreign travels. He talks about how the most attractive pieces in the books are the black and white nudes that “suited my fancy” (Mishima 37). It is interesting to note here that the main character is captivated by nude black and white art forms. Interesting because they’re attracted to the ones absent any color thereby emphasizing, through objective correlative this idea of isolation. Interesting because the figures are nude and their isolation on the plates is made more notably apparent because they have no protection. The plates represent how his father never let him touch art books (hence him never having seen them before) because his father didn’t trust children’s fingers and feared they would stain or dirty his books. The figures then go on to represent this alienation Kochan has with his father because his father cut him off from a world that he himself lived in. Art represents life, or a form of life, and in denying his son access to this realm, the father is further setting up this idea of filial isolation that translates into broader terms throughout the novel.

While looking through the art books he comes to the end of the book and pauses there while looking on the martyred figure of St. Sebastian (killed by arrows). The fact that he identifies with this figure satisfies this thesis of isolation’s prevalence throughout the novel. Not only is the figured made to be a martyr but the way they die, tied to a tree, a pariah from their town and from their religion, creates strong symbolic undertones to Mishima’s character, “a Titian-like background of gloomy forest and evening sky, somber and distant. A remarkably handsome youth was bound naked to the trunk of the tree. His crossed hands were raised high, and the thongs binding his wrists were tied to the tree. No other bonds were visible” (Mishima 38). The detail that he talks about St. Sebastian reveals an inner connection the protagonist must feel toward this painting. If this were to be believed then it is interesting to note that the figure is said to have few bounds keeping them on the tree suggesting that they want to be on the tree for it would be easy for them to get off. This suggests not only an identifier of isolation between art and protagonist but asceticism: wherein the protagonist wants to be isolated and alienated because it’s where they feel most comfortable having experienced few other states of being besides this one.

Staring at St. Sebastian’s nearly naked body this early in the novel, and the side suggestions Kochan makes about his father not having to worry about Kochan being distracted by the women’s naked bodies, is an early hint at the homosexuality that further isolates Kochan from society and his family. Kochan identifying with St. Sebastian’s wastrel body further exemplifies this idea of “differences” that isolated him from the mainstream. There’s this type of homoerotic gaze occurring in the novel’s passages at this point, which pinpoints this idea of isolation on multiple levels.

These same levels of isolation or feeling of aloneness are also present in Mikhail’s work The War Works Hard. Her poem “Voice,” has a line in it that reads, “in the room where/ her owner had left her/alone/to repeat/return/return/return” (lines 6-12) in which a parrot is repeating this phrase “return”. Mikhail’s work, drawing from her experience of the Iran-Iraq War pokes fun of stereotypes of heroism, and indeed there is no real hero in this poem, regardless of a heroic one. The parrot repeats this phrase in a room that he’s been left in by his owner “return”. The poem doesn’t specify what it is or where it is the parrot would like to return to but it is clear that there is no going back. If this piece were being juxtaposed with Mishima’s ideas of isolation and war, and how it changes a person’s identity, the Kochan and the parrot would be the same person: both were abandoned by their filial counterparts (for the parrot it’s owner, for Kochan, his actual father) and both wish to return to a simpler time so that they don’t have to suffer the isolation they find themselves in now. While the parrot’s isolation is a physical one, Kochan’s isolation (while physical) is also metaphysical one. The parrot in Mikhail’s poem in turn references another one of her poems The Prisoner.

The Prisoner echoes what the parrot has already symbolized: isolation. Isolation during war, isolation in culture, and isolation from family: all of this ties in to this idea of imprisonment. While Kochan felt imprisonment in his own body for being a homosexual and coming to terms with that and how it would affect his family’s view about him, the isolation that’s being spoken about in Mikhail’s poem is one of geographical isolation that in turn leads to cultural isolation. In The Prisoner a mother visits her son in prison but cannot seem to understand why he is there. His physical isolation is a conundrum to her and the poem travels back in time to when the boy was an infant and the mother took care of him. In the poem, in current day, the mother can’t seem to understand why the son has to be in prison, or even what prison is. This confusion leads to a type of cerebral isolation on the part of the mother. Perhaps she is suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) or else war has had such a damaging effect on her that she isn’t coming to terms with her current reality: a reality in which her son is in prison. This denial of not believing that her son is in prison is in itself a type of isolation: an isolation that hinges upon her not living in the real world. Thus, it’s a mental isolation.

Each work runs the gambit of isolation: be it gender, sexual orientation, geographical, cultural, familial. Each author portrays their characters or their subjects has having lived though war, been affected by it in some capacity, and have that capacity serve as a self-reflective mirror in which characters in either work are forced to confront this idea of isolation. While Mishima’s work focuses more on isolation through an identity crisis, Mikhail’s work focuses on what war does to identity and the isolation that evolves from that loss.

Works Cited

Mishima, Yukio. Confessions of a Mask. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1958. Print.

Mikhail, Dunya. The War Works Hard. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1965. Print.