This Day in History: Mishima commits ritual suicide

On this day in 1970, world-renowned Japanese writer Yukio Mishima commits suicide after failing to win public support for his often extreme political beliefs.

Born in 1925, Mishima was obsessed with what he saw as the spiritual barrenness of modern life. He preferred prewar Japan, with its austere patriotism and traditional values, to the materialistic, westernized nation that arose after 1945. In this spirit, he founded the “Shield Society,” a controversial private army made up of about 100 students that was to defend the emperor in the event of a leftist uprising.

Mishima wrote his first notable novel in 1948, “Confessions of a Mask.” It was translated into English ten years later and the title was a perfect one to convey the pre-liberation, closeted years of gay life.

Mishima was open about his ambiguous sexuality, but also conservative in terms of nationalism and militarism. His search for purity in those areas drove him to commit ritual suicide, seppuku, self-disembowelment, in 1970.

On November 25, Mishima delivered to his publisher the last installment of The Sea of Fertility, his four-volume epic on Japanese life in the 20th century that is regarded as his greatest work. He then went with several followers to a military building in Tokyo and seized control of a general’s office. There, from a balcony, he gave a brief speech to about 1,000 assembled servicemen, in which he urged them to overthrow Japan’s constitution, which forbids Japanese rearmament. The soldiers were unsympathetic, as they shouted at him “You’re not even logical,” and Mishima committed ritual suicide, by disemboweling himself with his sword.
Though his extreme beliefs did not gain him much of a following, many mourned the loss of such a gifted author.

Paul Schrader adapted his novels into cinema. The movie “Delirious” scoffs at the idea of purity in art, but Schrader’s biopic “Mishima,” on the other hand, beautifully conceived, seems to reveal how the quest for purity in art and life can be disastrous. Divided into life segments and chapters from his novels, the movie blurs Mishima’s life and art, probably just as Mishima himself saw little distinction between the two.