The Pen and Sword: Contradictions in “Sun and Steel”

Possibly one of the most complex writers in history, Mishima Yukio wrote about his relationship with his body in an autobiographic essay “Sun and Steel” two years before committing seppuku in 1970. In this essay there are many underlying contradictions in Mishima’s written thoughts and feelings. Though he is a writer, he criticizes imagination. After describing something in writing, he then claims that it is the antithesis of words. Mishima admits that ideas preceded his body but later says that the development of his body was not a result of his mind. The writer claims to be trapped in a world of individuality but also strives to be a part of a group mentality. He puts contradiction in a wider frame of Japanese culture itself to be a place that combines beauty and brutality. These contradictions occur because he tries to combine what he admits are opposite forces, the pen and sword.

Probably the biggest contradiction of all time in this essay is Mishima’s attack on the imagination. He wrote, “Why do we conceive the desire to give expression to things that cannot be said – and sometimes succeed? Such success is a phenomenon that occurs when a subtle arrangement of words excites the reader’s imagination to the extreme degree; at that moment the author and reader become accomplices in a crime of the imagination.” Crime is the keyword in this. Not many authors would dare call what is required for their art to be a crime. In fact, not many people in general would make that bold argument against something so innately human. Interestingly enough, this very “crime” Mishima describes is occurring while a reader reads this essay. Mishima is indeed successfully giving expression to what he describes “cannot be said.” This “phenomenon” he gives us is the very occurrence that is happening as people read his essay.

The most shocking attack on the imagination was probably when Mishima wrote, “How many lazy men’s truths have been admitted in the name of imagination! How often has the term imagination been used to prettify the unhealthy tendency of the soul to soar off in a boundless quest after truth, leaving the body where is always was! How often have men escaped from the pains of their own bodies with the aid of that sentimental aspect of the imagination that feels the ills of others’ flesh as its own!” Not only does he shame imagination but escapism and even the empathy imagination gives people. The strange element in all this is that Mishima dabbles in much that is created by imagination, kabuki plays, novels, serial novels, short stories, Noh dramas, acting in various films, and even writing various films. Even this essay in itself can fit into the category of what Mishima is attacking.

Mishima criticizes what fencing has become, comparing it to the shamefulness of imagination. He claims it is no longer about the real sword since it “slices nothing but air” He is committed to bushido, the “way of the warrior.” The current sport of fencing was impractical, which Mishima did not appreciate. He compares what fencing has become to the art of imagination. He writes, “The art of fencing was the summation of every type of manly beauty; yet, insofar as the manliness was no longer of any practical use in society, it was scarcely distinguishable from art that depended solely on the imagination. Imagination I detested. For me, fencing ought to be something that admitted of no intervention of the imagination.” Mishima uses the strong word “detested” for probably what led him to the sport in the first place. How does one know how an action can be without committing the action? Mishima’s vision of fencing comes from studying the way of the warrior and while doing that, he imagined it. For him to be displeased on something physical is to use his imagination to envision the grander scale of possibilities. Yet Mishima wants no imagination involved in fencing, but he uses imagination to envision the act of fencing with no imagination involved. The paradox is overwhelming.

Knowing some people may ridicule at Mishima’s opinion on imagination he wrote, “The cynics – well aware that there is nobody who despises the imagination so thoroughly as the dreamer, whose dreams are the process of imagination – will, I am sure, scoff at my confession in their own minds.” What makes this so interesting is Mishima says that the people who despise imagination the most are those that constantly use its function. Since he does not know every dreamer in the world, the person he is really speaking for is himself. This leads to one of the factors for Mishima’s many puzzling contradictions. He himself admits that the reason he can despise imagination is because he is a dreamer. This could mean he romanticizes the physical world because he is just sick of dreaming. Dreaming could be a certain kind of torture when there are things you find trouble expressing, which Mishima admits at the very first sentence in “Sun and Steel,” “Of late, I have come to sense within myself an accumulation of all kinds of things that cannot find adequate expression via an objective artistic form such as the novel.” To Mishima, the simple ways of the physical world could be healing for someone who has trouble expressing himself. Mishima is known to have dabbled in many things, and being an unhappy dreamer is likely why.

Many times in “Sun and Steel,” Mishima writes that the flesh cannot be given an expression with words. Of course the irony is that he writes about the world of flesh and many would agree that his words give accurate expression to the physical realm.

One such example is in his description of muscles. He goes into great detail to describe how his muscles relax and sink into his body when he stops using his strength on an object. He wrote, “I was enveloped in a sense of power as transparent as light.” Readers and writers alike could agree this is a wonderful expression of the flesh, but Mishima writes right after that description, “It is scarcely to be wondered at that in this pure sense of power that no amount of books or intellectual analysis could ever capture, I should discover a true antithesis of words.” He is developing the paradox himself by claiming words to be the opposite of what he is describing with words.

Another such example is at the beginning of the essay. He uses the literary tool of figurative language to describe the body. He writes, “If my self was my dwelling, then my body resembled an orchard that surrounded it. I could either cultivate that orchard to its capacity or leave it be for the weeds to run riot in.” Yet he later criticizes words trying to capture reality. He constantly rephrases that reality can never truly be given verbal expression while at the same time he expresses his definition of reality.

One scene Mishima fondly recaps to many times is shrine bearers carrying a portable shrine during a festival, looking into the sky. He witnessed this scene as a child and uses it to introduce his fascination with physical conditioning. When he himself participates in carrying the shrine he says, “I promptly set down what I had discovered in a short essay, so important did my experience seem to me” and “I used words to recall and reconstruct that vision.” After describing that scene and admitting to have written about it before Mishima then says, “Can the blue sky that well all see, the mysterious blue sky that is seen identically by all the bearers of the festival shrine, ever be given verbal expression?” Posing this as a question may express doubt or he may mean it as rhetorical question to tell the reader that such a thing can never be “given verbal expression.”

Another fond moment Mishima shares with his readers is a moment of utter delight after a day of hard training. He described a feeling of intoxication and nostalgic sadness and wrote “I existed….” He believed at that moment that everything was perfect, “Nothing was lacking; every piece of the mosaic was in place. I had absolutely no need of any others, and thus no need for words.” From this quote the readers could deduce that Mishima does not think the world of words are the key to happiness. This gives the big question: If that is so then why does he write? He even states before he tells this story that, “…It is a rather risky matter to discuss a happiness that has no need of words,” but he later on states, “I feel compelled to write of here.” This “compelled” feeling he admits he has is a paradox to having no need of words. Mishima seems to desire to share this experience with an audience though he claims that it is risky to do so because words are not enough. Though thinking it is not enough, he tries to share with the audience anyway. He is a man who writes with a goal in mind, so the words are not as useless as he states. Mishima wants his readers to understand and deep down he feels he can get some understanding through with words.

Mishima claims that words came to him before flesh. He believed his body was wasted by words in his early years.

He believed that the body was naturally meant to come first. He uses a simile, saying the body is like a piece of wood and the mind is a collection of white ants that eventually come and feed on it. In this simile he uses ants to describe ideas, giving them a corrosive function. He believes art eats away at physical being and even sometimes eats away at itself. His simile brings to question, how aware is he of his contradictions? In “Sun and Steel,” all is ideas; a description what Mishima claims cannot be expressed. Mishima may be hinting that his ideas are not currently feeding off his body but his vision of what his body is, thus could be the reason behind all these contradictions.

He addresses the reader, “Let the reader not chide me for comparing my own trade to the white ant.” He admits ideas to be his trade presently (not his flesh). Yet we must also remember he was doing more than writing at this time, he was also modelling. Still he identifies at this moment for his job to be writing, despite his criticism of the art in this essay.

Mishima wrote, “I would draw attention here to one fact: that everything, as this shows, proceeded from my ‘mind.’” From this, he tells that his mind made the choice to take physical training. Later on in the essay when he discusses acquiring bodily strength he adds, “I would not have it believed that this development was a result of the workings of my imagination. My discovery was made directly from my body, thanks to the sun and steel.” This is a contradiction because imagination would connect the realm of the mind. Mishima does often describe imagination to be useless in the physical world. Perhaps to him the mind and imagination are not so entwined and the mind can combine with reality, but imagination cannot. A discovery made directly from the body seems a little questionable because how can there be discovery without the mind involved? For Mishima to explain the phenomenon would probably only create more contradictions due to his intellectual side taking over and the physical world he so desperately wishes to share fades. In writing that his body proceeded from his mind, he was claiming that his body is this way because his mind made a choice. He also wants to thank “sun and steel” which are his constructed ideas of the physical world and action for his current body.

It could be concluded that these contradictions can be due to a conflict in identity. Mishima seems to equate the “individual” with the world of words and the “group” as the physical world. Mishima seems to sway between the two, being an individual in his words but also desiring to be part of a group.

As a generality, Japan is seen as a collectivist culture which prefers group thinking over individuality. Mishima, who was known to be quite the nationalist, looked upon collectivism with pride. This did not mean he cursed individuality. Though he is harsh on the idea of the individual in “Sun and Steel,” his fame causes him to be seen by many as an individual rather than a part of a group. Mishima puts himself in so many groups in Japan ranging from right-wing military to left-wing intellectuals. His many positions in the world make him hard to stereotype as a part of a certain group, though he certainly did try to be part of many groups, perhaps so many that it is now impossible to put him in a single group.

One quote of Mishima’s in “Sun and Steel” in terms of his fascination with the group is, “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. And for the body to reach that level at which the divine might be glimpsed, dissolution of individuality was necessary,” and “If I had achieved identity with the group, participation in tragedy would have been far easier, but from the outset words had worked to drive me farther and farther from the group.” He puts the group in the physical world and puts words in the world of the individual. He describes words to draw him away from the group and physical work to bring him closer to the group. Mishima, in separating these two worlds, he actually created two groups, both which he cannot completely fit into because he has one foot in each. Though Mishima claims individuality to be in words, he is setting aside “nocturnal thinkers” as a group rather than scattered and various sorts of individuals. The definition of individuality is to be distinguished and strongly marked as separate from one another but Mishima does not individualize writers, but groups them up into a stereotype just as he does with the physical realm, making both not seem to be about individuality. This is yet another bizarre contradiction. The real individuality seems to exist in Mishima. Once again, he tries to speak for a group but may really be just speaking for himself.

In an interview with Mishima, he describes Japanese culture to be a mix of two contradictions. One is beauty and the other is brutality. From “Sun and Steel” we can see that Mishima is fascinated by both aspects; the pen being a world of beauty, and the physical world to be one of brutality. Within the interview Mishima said “I don’t like how Japanese culture is represented by flower arrangement or as a peace loving culture.” It can concluded that Mishima does not just want to be just represented as a writer either, just as he does not want his country to be represented as only “peace loving.”

Mishima also states in the interview, “Sometimes we are too sensitive about refinement or elegance or sense of beauty or the aesthetic side. Sometimes we are tired of it and we need sometimes a sudden explosion to make us free from it.” Mishima’s statement of “we” is to describe Japanese culture. This generality of culture could possibly be true, but in any case, the statement is true to Mishima as an individual. He speaks for his culture, but he also speaks for himself. He tires of his aesthetic side and needs a physical world to free him from it.

The contradiction of beauty and brutality as well as art and the physical world are very alike. In “Sun and Steel” Mishima describes the sun in two different manners. The first sun is one which tanned his skin and blessed him with the physical realm. The second sun Mishima describes is one of utter brutality. He linked this sun to pain, struggle, and shortness of breath. He wrote, “This second sun was essentially far more dangerous to the intellect than the first sun had ever been. It was this danger more than anything else that delighted me.” Once again Mishima seems to sway towards the side of brutality almost to take a break from intellectualism and the pen just as he states that Japanese culture tires of beauty and desire to once in a while have a sudden explosion.

“Sun and Steel” was published in 1968. Two years after it was written, Mishima committed seppuku in a coup attempt to restore power to Japan’s emperor. After reading “Sun and Steel,” many were probably not surprised since Mishima admits in his essay that he “cherished a romantic impulse towards death.” Those closest to Mishima were not surprised by his death. For example, his gay lover Akihiro Miwa even said that he thought “congratulations” when he found that that Mishima succeeded in committing seppuku, knowing it was what Mishima planned and desired.

Mishima’s death could be the mending point of his contradictions. Death was desired and romanticized by Mishima because he believes it was only at the point of death that art and the physical world could truly become one. He sets this up with the following reasoning, “Action – as one might say – perishes with the blossom; literature is an imperishable flower. And an imperishable flower, of course, is an artificial flower.” One of the many contradictions between action and literature is action is a flower that eventually dies while literature is a flower that never wilts because it is not truly alive. Mishima’s death was achieved by committing seppuku during a staged coup d’etat attempt. This attempt was literally known as “The Mishima Incident.” Mishima is certainly not the first or the last writer known to kill himself. The fact that he staged a coup d’etat and used seppuku in order to die, Mishima combined the two contradictions that he mentioned. He both physically died and immortalized himself. Rather than killing himself in private, like most writers who have committed suicide, he let it be known how he died. He treated his death as an act for an audience. He chose seppuku due to his fetish for the way of the warrior. He also believed it was through suffering that the spirit truly awakened to the physical world.

Mishima makes it known in “Sun and Steel” that he has a fetish for the physical realm, but due to the various contradictions one can find he still has a love for the pen and ideas. He sets up the pen and sword to be two different worlds. Another reason for these contradictions could be Mishima is trying to separate what is already completely combined within him.

Mishima writes, “Ideas do not stare back; things do.” In separating the world of the pen and sword he often criticizes the pen and romanticizes the sword. Ideas are the unseen and the physical world is the seen. The physical world is watched over by the sun and the world of ideas is under the moon.

He goes as far as to call himself changing his physical habits as a racial change. He wrote, “The sun became associated with the main highway of my life. And little by little, it tanned my skin brown, branding me as a member of the other race.” Saying he became a part of another race is not literal, but creative, adding further to contradict his odd criticism on imagination. In describing the world of the pen he says, “I was surrounded by people whose skins unmistakably bore witness to nocturnal thinking,” and “The literary works written or put before the public around that time were dominated by night thoughts.” The puzzling element in these descriptions is Mishima seems to want to set himself as a dramatically changed man by aligning himself with the sun (the physical world), but the existence of this very essay is an object against him. Would he claim this essay to have been dominated by “night thoughts?” Or does the topic of the physical realm justify it to be different?

Mishima mentions the contradiction of the two worlds within himself. He wrote, “The embracing of a duel polarity within the self and the acceptance of contradiction and collision – such was my own blend of ‘art and action.’” He admits to contradiction and does not defend himself. He writes that it is part of who he has become and seems to even embrace the fact.

Mishima is a complicated character but through him we can ask, are human beings really so simple? Do we all have to fit into one stereotype, one category to feel happy? In “Sun and Steel” through these contradictions, we can see that Mishima struggles to combine what he believes are opposite categories within himself. He tries to make sense of himself, he constantly categorizes and tries to rationalize the two elements.

As complex as Mishima may seem, everyone is an example of contradiction as well. The difference is that most people do not feel comfortable with paradox, and their minds often choose a category to fit into. Mishima, as one can see in “Sun and Steel” often felt compelled to do the same but in the end he decided both are beautiful and he will not abandon either.