Masculinity in Crisis | Analyzing Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima tells the story of a man named Ryuji who gives up life as a sailor in search of adventure in order to settle down, marry a single mother, and live happily ever after, except this book doesn’t exactly have a fairy tale ending.
Thematically this book is about the loss of what we might call glory or the loss of hope for meaningful existence in modern life, or the loss of manhood-the loss of what the Greeks called Ανδρεία , or the Roman’s, virtus, and to a degree, the Norse Drengr, though these words only marginally hint at the feeling of reckless adventure that the sailor Ryuji has felt calling him all his life in the swelling of the sea.
When we first meet Ryuji in the novel he is in his mid 30s. He’s never settled down because he’s always been chasing an ethereal call to greatness. A feeling that is difficult to describe.
But it seems Ryuji has become disenchanted with the sea. He’s drawn to the romantic vision of life at sea and everything it represents, the life of danger and wrestling with a terrible force beyond his comprehension. But he is disillusioned with the reality of life at sea. The ocean seemed to offer greatness, but a sense of Glory was always something beyond him, never a reality. Always promised, but never delivered, and now he’s wondering if it was all a lie.
And it hasn’t helped that he’s fallen in love with a woman. When his ship puts into port he ends up giving a tour of the vessel to a single mother Fusako and her Nautically obsessed son, Noboru. Ryuji and Fusako fall in love and For perhaps the first time in his life, Ryuji is presented with a peaceful, stable, rooted life on land with a family. He decides it is best to settle down. Concluding that there is no glory to be had in life at sea after all.
Already we can see that this is a relevant book, especially for men, because we are living in a time when men are longing for the sea, so to speak. For freedom, and purpose, greatness and the voice of glory. in a world dominated by Starbucks, McDonald’s, pumpkin spice lattes, and the Kardashians. Like Ryuji, Men are putting off getting married until they are in their thirties, waiting for a glory that still hasn’t come and it seems will never come. We are faced with the choice between holding out, waiting for the opportunity to do something great and meaningful, or settling and starting a family.
Ryuji chooses the latter.
His decision profoundly affects his prospective step-son, Noboru. You see, like Ryuji, the young Noboru is also fascinated with the sea because it is the essence of glory. The sea itself is not just a symbol for heroism, it is a real life matrix for masculine virtues of dangers, risk, self-reliance. When the sailor Ryuji comes riding off of its waves into Noboru’s life, Ryuji becomes a symbol of the sea and everything it stands for. An avatar, a simulacrum, a mediator. Noboru is only 13, he has no actuality as a person, no experience in life, his existence still consists in dreaming and imaging the world, so he latches on to Ryuji and lives vicariously through the sailor.
When Ryuji does decide to give up his life at sea, Noboru is crushed. It means the end of the world. His symbol of the world is shattered. And There is only one cure, according to the chief of Noboru’s gang. . .
#YukioMishima #JapaneseLiterature #BookAnalysis
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I don't understand how you exist. I started with your Master and Commander video and now I find Kierkegaard, Aristotle, and MISHIMA? WHAT
My goodness.
Mishima's Noboru raged against the rejection of his idealism and Mishima himself killed his own failure in the same sense.
OMG! Same. I started on Master on Commander barely 2 days ago, and now I am watching religion in Van Gogh's paintings, Kierkegaard in Wonder Woman 84, the cruelty of Stoicism (I admit I was hooked into stoicism by RUclips before I watched your video) and I had never heard of Mishima before. Great work. This is a true Empire of the Mind, a mind that goes in any direction in any field. Bravo! Excellent work.
The most tragic part is the glory that is never found.
The problem here is that "glory" is never defined in tangible terms, so that one would have a hard time knowing if they had attained glory or not. Not to mention that glory is supposedly something that falls out of the sky as a consequence of living with danger and challenge rather than something that arises from within and is recognizable to others. The other mistake - at least from a Western conception of glory - is that it is fleeting. So even if glory is attained, how can it be maintained? And this segues back to the lack of clarity about what glory is. Mishima seems to conceive of it as a permanent personal quality that never fades and is always known to all.
@@juliancate7089 mishima was inspired by warrior cultures: samurai, the greeks & scandinavians whom believed you do achieve permanent glory, but only by dying in battle (aka, valhalla) -- this being the ultimate expression of the highest values, bravery and honor -- In contrast, dying from old age means you have failed. So in Fell From Grace with the Sea, when Ryuji gives up his pursuit of glory, he is "already dead" as there is no chance he will secure glory. According to the warrior ethos, he will die a meaningless death, whether today or in the future is irrelevant.
@@wave641 I strongly disagree that Mishima's concept of glory has any resemblance to Western concepts. The glory spoken of in this story is clearly coming from a shame-based culture where the mere avoidance of shame - like quitting an ultimately pointless struggle with an adverse environment like the sea - grants glory. Western ideals are coming from a trust-based culture where glory is the result of overcoming adversity even if it means death. Emphasis on positive action to overcome and keeping faith with the trust placed on the individual to perform, not merely enduring and avoiding shame. But one thing I've learned from commentary on the Internet is that everyone is a know-it-all who is never mistaken.
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I interpreted the sailor as being a stand in for Mishima and the boys a representation of those who admire Mishima. Mishima knew he had to die before he could degenerate, he often spoke of his death and how he longed for it to be beautiful. His greatest fear was to die to cancer in a hospital. So by him commuting seppuku, the movement can live on through his followers who are themselves young, with their lives ahead of them and still capable of greatness. Mishima once said that once a man has reached 40, it is not possible for him to die beautifully
Having read most of his books in my early twenties much of what I took away from them has faded with time, Im sixty now... But yes, Holy crap! I fled from my home town at 17, worked as an itinerant carpenter, a forest ranger. After six years I went to art school got a masters degree in art and photography, lived in Maine, New Haven, Philadelphia, Budapest, Japan, Brooklyn, now I'm up state about to get married and have kids... I've found my glory and meaning... Mishima's end was bloody and violent... In youth I had no understanding of what I read and in my later years I understand what is being romanticized but the outcome makes no sense. Perhaps that's the difference between a laps Catholic and a laps Buddhist.
Glad I subbed to this channel! You should do a video on Mishima’s story/short movie “Patriotism”.
Loved it, commenting for the algo.
Ryuji -- former generation, samurai, conservative, reactionary, mystical, aesthetical, self-sacrificing, detached, seeking transcendence, but prone to sensuality and lust (causing his fall), vain, masculine
Fusako -- parent, capitalist, liberalist, westerniser, supports individualism and consumerism, high-society, rationalist, materialist, feminine, sensual, critical of the former.
The Chief, Noburo and Gang -- children, new generation, nihilists, atheists, amoral, unconventional, against social institutions, revolutionary, anarchists, dispassionate, objective, beyond aesthetics and emotions, insensitive, rational, scientific (though critical of science), reject the sacred, superman (Ubermensch) mentality, advocates of the will to power, vain, believe that end justifies means, from upper-class families, critical of the former two.
Sea -- Infinite, immortal, elevating, transcending, blissful, inviting danger/death, timeless, eternal, irrational, beyond laws and conventions.
Land - finite, material, society regulated by laws and conventions, bourgeois, self-preserving, mechanised, sensual.
I think #RyuMurakami puts the love of violence in almost a redemptive light in From the Fatherland with love, where a gang of misfits finally find a real excuse to get very very violent. Japanese men grow up with a mix of #bushido (#Samurai values), zen, Confucianism, and these days a more secular scientific outlook. They are mostly a long way from understanding violence in a Christian context.
This calls for a reread of the book in question, it's been sometime since I last read it. I feel as if you could draw a convoluted line between this books symbol of the sea with that of Moby Dick, I like the quote "Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?" from the chapter Loomings. I can tell that you put some work in making this episode aesthetic, as always, nice work
Absolutely. Moby Dick is, in terms of symbolism, such an embarrassment of riches that you could probably tie it to anything and everything. But there’s definitely a clear sense, from the narrator’s POV, that the sea is the cure for the ‘damp, drizzly November of the soul,’ as well as the preferable alternative to ‘falling on your own sword.’ I wonder what Mishima thought of Moby Dick. . .
Always appreciate your insight.
The Japanese being island people often use the ocean as a bridge in their stories. A bridge to a new world. To adventure. Think the Dragon Quest series, Final Fantasy 4, One Piece, and so much more…
This youtube channel needs way more views. This guy understands it. Life's been so god damn difficult lately. This story is way too close to home.
There is a pretty obvious allegory in this book of Japan abandoning it's imperial ambitions in favor of western democratic values.
Fusako represents american influence with his import luxury goods store and her house which is described as furnished in the western style.
Read the part where the sailor proposes to her: they are looking at the rising red sun (the motif of the imperial flag). After Ryuji makes up his mind and proposes to Fusako, he is no longer able to look at the sun.
The killing of the sailor by the boys represents Mishima's resentment towards his country for capitulating at the end of the war.
It is basicly a fascist parable.
Eeeek! The Fash!
2 + 2 = 4 and nothing you say will ever change that
Yes and?
@@annafraud9787 what are you trying to say? Do you disagree with my interpretation?
You say this like its a bad thing.
@@aninMISH im not glossing them over, they rule.
It looks like your getting popular and I’m really happy for you.
Your videos on just about any topic are great but ones like this are particularly special as It's really hard to find good in-depth analysis of literature on RUclips.
I know books (especially classics like this one) are more niche than films but please never stop making these types of videos and I’d love to hear your take on more books.
This is the problem with finding meaning outside of yourself, the inevitable answer when the search never ends, it's to finish it by death!!!
Dr. Samuel Johnson once wrote "Every man thinks meanly of himself for never having been a soldier or gone to sea." This was from an intellectual writing from the 1770s. I think this is something that still remains with us. We idolize those who went and took dangerous risks like fight in a war or done something dangerous that most people would shy away from. I think a lot of us want to have these experiences but can never get them. I think Mishima hit the nail on the head there. Mishima himself missed out in fighting in WWII and later joined the Japanese Self Defense Force and later formed his own paramilitary force which he tried to use in a failed coupe that led to his act of seppuku. Likewise he was looking for his act of glory, but didn't get it.
This erotic relationship with death is unsettling. Death is the final enemy, but as such, it is the ultimate baseline.
Mishimas way of writing the meaning (and sometimes meaningless) deaths of his characters is his most incredible strength. I’d say this is best seen with Kiyoaki in spring snow, who’s death reminded me in many ways of a Shakespearean tragedy.
@@theraybeam7581nooooo I shouldn’t have come to the comments nooooooo
Just finished the book and this video made the whole experience even better.
Wonderful channel and yet another great video. It must be awfully crowded in your head with so many brilliant thought springing up like a well. I wonder how you can read, see and think so much and be so prolific in publishing videos. There have got to be tonnes of energy and a very agile mind behind that, that's hardly ever fully sattisfied with what's on offer. The human condition on steroids of sorts. But you provide a service much saught after. It convinces me - among others - that I'm not alone in struggling with modernity and a lifelong quest for meaning in a world that doesn't seem to have need or purpose for me anymore.
Illness is a blow to any person and as someone who served as a soldier, it's even harder not to feel demasculinated (is that even a word?), useless and helpless. Until I found this bumpersticker wisdom that changed my outlook on life and what it means to be human in the first place. It's a silly rhyme but it holds power:
Life is mostly frost and bubble
but two things stand like a stone
kindness in another person's trouble
courage in your own
God, I was thinking Jordan Peterson the whole time I read this book. Much more artfully done, of course
Really? It made me think of Chuck Palahniuk.
I felt the boys were like a second during seppuku (the ones who help behead the samurai who's already cut and plunged their dagger into their gut). Ryuji was coming to terms with his failure to achieve glory and his abandonment of the search for it. The glory is the purpose that fuels men and young boys alike. Usually matured men grow jaded and old, and eventually give up on dreams and glory, and settle down. The young boys who're filled with naivety and innocence can only value dreams. I felt Ryuji's final moments as he reflects on his old search for glory was him tapping back into that young boyish innocence all men have inside and coming to terms with the melancholy of having to let it go. Even had the boys not been there, that reflective moment for Ryuji was essentially a killing of self. The boys offering Ryuji the tea and continuing their plan is their beheading of him. It felt like an allegory for defeat, the loss of honor and innocence, and finally, seppuku.
Then we fill this crack now with social progress. In riot and protess. In cancellation and threat. It is the same lonely dream of the sea.
Seems pretty racist to imply a bunch of kitten killing murderers would only be "strange for westerners" and might be seen as heroic in Japan
I don't know Japanese culture perfectly but I'm pretty sure they're not into those things
Interesting! I, too, was apparently too naive to see this story as story about a boy growing into manhood. And a man living an idealistic life of solitude with the sea who longs for a different reality that is a life at home with a wife and family. Which is just one potential choice to achieve manhood. One that is very different from the life of a sailor. An either/or choice that precludes living both.
This was a powerful video for me, and I can’t say it’s similar to anything I’ve come across before. Please continue with your work on this channel, I love it
Thanks! Glad it resonated. I definitely want to create videos that are different from anything else on RUclips, if I can...
Mishima regretted his cowardice of joining the military during the last year of the war.
"To my knowledge, he never killed anyone" LMAOOOO
Man its crazy you seem to have the very Same interests as i do
I would like to hang out with you.
If I may be so bold, this is very easily understood once you know a bit of Japanese History. There is a romanticism about the Samurai that still exists even today. No different than I think some Americans have towards their idolized version of "The Old West".
Both are HIGHLY warped and have become something more akin to myth because of the shared prevailing culture of, as you have given the example of the sea, something to be concurred. The search for glory.
The Sengoku Period (Warring States period) of Japan was the glory days of the Samurai. What Mishima is saying with his work is, at it's core, is the same philosophy a noble Samurai would have in regards toward his own life. Especially the part of "The Noble Death".
Mishima is still trying to bring that old philosophy of the past and try and make room for it in the future. However, instead of salvaging the parts that COULD be still applicable today, he simply tries to force the philosophy, without adding or subtracting from it, into the modern world and becoming distressed that, in doing so, cannot make the two coexist.
Mishima's basic motivations were self-hatred because of his homosexuality and bloodlust because of his sadistic blood fetishism. No small wonder such a person committed suicide in as bloody a way as possible. Mishima was an egotist who lured young men into terrorist activities because he himself wanted to die a bloody death that would be remembered. At the core of his being, he was vane and feminine and by no means can or should he serve as any sort of role model for men today. (Something similiar can be said about the alt right figure Jack Donovan, both are bluffs.)
Kierkegaard's opinion that marriage is the only way to have a sense of self is either over my head or pure sophist nonsense, or both, but then that's how a lot of philosophy seems, especially when I receive it secondhand.
Whenever it's from a religiously sympathetic source it always seems selected to suggest to one a ridiculous theological fantasy on the grounds of pseudo-reason and the manipulation of linguistic associations. Ideas that a 6 year old could communicate simply, but then they would sound as myopic as they are.
I think he just means a life within other people in it leaves you with only your personal idea of who you are and no one else's.
And here I am past thirty
Thank you for providing some clarity to what was a very disturbing movie to me. I won't bother with the book. Perhaps Mishima was torn between an oedipal desire for his mother and his seeing manhood in his dominant father, a father who tried to prevent Mishima's "effeminate" reading and writing.
I don't find Mishima's glorifying death out of the realm of western notions of excellence, i.e., "arete." Consider Achilles's mother's prediction: ''My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I shall not return alive but my name will live forever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me."
In "The Iliad", that arrogant demigod's pride was so injured that, he refused to fight for the Greeks and prayed that the Trojans win.
Rather than glorying in war and death, if I had a choice and had no moral obligation to fight, I would personally prefer marriage and fatherhood. It is a different means to selfhood: A phrase I read in C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves" much impresses me:
"...the incalculable momentousness of being a parent and an ancestor."
What's the meaning of the title?
Past 40 and I'm still not married. Still searching the glory
I find it funny, people like me are throwing masculinity in the bin. Feminism have convinced the world that masculinity is toxic, so we've said, "OK, deal with your own problems, you're on your own!"
Remember that video of some weirdo who randomly sits down next to a young lady on the subway in NY and starts playing with her hair as she kind of looks around at everyone making faces and crying as if to say "please someone help me"? We don't give a shit anymore, why should we put ourselves in harm's way for someone who wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire? And you know what else? Once we're all dead, it's not our problem any more
Most interesting, thank you, especially the interview with YMishima. Just shows how freedom of will is such a nonsense, for Mishima was restricted by the opportunities known to him, as opposed to the opportunities available to him. There may, indeed be a longing to die for a great cause but that dying need not be physical death. The monk, be he a follower of the original teachings of the Buddha (as found in the ancient Pali Texts, and which are quite different to Zen) or be he a follower of Zen (of which I know very little), undertakes in his discipline/meditation to 'kill' his own worldliness (his pursuit of sensual pleasures), precisely because that is meaningless and of no true value. It is most certainly, however, a 'great cause' that still exists, which cannot be said of marriage/procreation, which is also meaningless. As Francis Bacon says: 'He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.'
Can we have a discussion of my favourite Mishima novel, 'The Temple of the Golden Pavillion'? His 'Forbidden Colours' is not a favourite, but there is a scene that made a great impression on me. The protagonist is an astonishingly beautiful young man whom a high-powered industrialist becomes homosexually infatuated with. After some years, however, the industrialist realizes how empty/humiliating is his infatuation is, and after showing the object of his infatuation around the huge plant that he owns/runs, the industrialist gives him a cheque for a large sum of money to leave him forever, to allow him his dignity. Don't think I have ever come across a novel that turns the sexual infatuation on its head that way, although it may exist.
your stuff is awesome
People always debate the identity of 144,000. I don't think the number consists of who they think but rather the 144,000 will be God's messengers and I don't think He will stop sending them even after Christ's second coming ( although the message may be different ). I appreciate your inclusion of J. Peterson as a philosopher with a keen sense of the human condition and there are many more for sure. I won't inject my opinions further. I think there are a few books I will be including in my next purchase of such though. Thank you for this video. I enjoy all your content.
I am very pleased to find this channel today!
I thought that I might give my opinion on why Yukio Mishima felt that the importance of dying was more important than marriage. I am very un knowledgeable about most of Asian beliefs but I think understanding some of what I know about the history of the United States,I can tell you that the U.S. has not seen bodies pile up in streets in a very long time except in certain disasters such as September 11, 2001 or other small disasters that were limited to one area. Covid 19 did not show bodies lining the streets of the metropolitan areas such as what happened with the Spanish Flu in the early twentieth century. I was born in 1953. I have never walked over a corpse or touched one except at one funeral. Very many citizens of other countries have. And that would possibly be every day or every hour depending on the circumstances. With the human mind trying to psychologically soothe the tragic loss of all the scenes of dying, the mind distracts these thoughts into the belief of a more natural consequence. Birth is precious and so is death and both should be celebrated as the ultimate gift of God. A reference to this is Mexico’s Day Of The Dead. I support this type of celebration because for me it is more soothing than what the North Americans believe, and that is to fear death and gather anxiety over it which ultimately reduces the quality of health.
Originally fairy tales did have bad endings so it does have a fairy tale ending in the sense that the main characters demise sends a message
Plan demic and NBW brought reason to live & fight.
Amazing video man. Great analysis.
What's the meaning of the book title?
I think it represents Ryuji giving up the idea of great glory and ideas of finding meaning in pain and death (ss a sailor). He marries to a Westernized woman and a family home, falling from grace with the "sea", that is, the old japanese samurai traditional values.
Excellent analysis & quotes .. where’d you find that interview of Mishima ? Thanks
Almost gave up on the book watched half this video and man I dove into the rest of the book. Thanks!
watching this video as the back sound of me painting my nails.
So to that conclusion, death and rebirth!
to improve your spirit and body read Sun and Steel by M
Beautiful articulation
Great book, great video
I loved the book and the movie FREAKED ME OUT!! Saw it as a kid. (un-edited yet!!).
The movie was something else. Never heard of it before a Facebook group informed me.
@@criminalbehaviorology I was a kid when I saw it. Sex scenes unedited and all. Talk about mind blowing. The acting was SO good and creepy on the the main kid's part. All the kids were pure sociopaths. Totally underrated performances by Kristofferson and Miles.
6:43 dafuq
Love this perspective on Mishima, but I have to somewhat disagree on one point. Mishima is of course a complicated character in his own right, and had a strong (you could justifiably say misguided) ideology. However I do believe that this book can and should be considered on its own merits.
Here he has done what all masters of literature can do: create a compelling context, a compelling scene, a snapshot of a life, and leave the reader to glean the meaning from it. I don't think Mishima says here that death is the answer so to speak, or that marriage/stability/giving up on glory are inherently negative things. I think what he is instead doing is showing us the type of conflicts that exist on some level within all of us (particularly men), conflicts of purpose and conflicts of identity, and is saying: here's what these characters did, and here's their reasoning. I don't believe it is intended to be any sort of guidelines or persuasion towards a 'right way to live' but rather, it's a true tragedy in the sense that it exposes to us difficult, unanswerable questions that we must all, on some level, face.
Other than that, loved your breakdown and the production on this video, 100% subbed!
👍
If you reject the heroic death, you reject the world itself. Christianity, I think, gives you the answer: That we participate, every day, and in our rituals, in the heroic death, through amanuensis and kenosis. And this perhaps answers the author’s statement in the interview that we need a great cause and “ values that go beyond ourselves.”
I saw the movie many years ago. What it left me with these impressions- sick children, a boy spying on his mother’s bedroom, a man dies because he got involved with a woman with a psycho child.
I guess I missed the art.
its only because you watched the movie and your interpretation is based on a mere movie and not the novel. I think that will be the case for all books made in to films.
Japanese is not, for the most part an accentual language. This may seem like nitpicking, but except in certain dialects, you should not stress any syllable in a word or name. It distracted me from your explication of Mishima's novel.
This is not quite accurate. It’s a general rule but people still do it in Japan.
homosexuals
What are your thoughts on Peterson's use of the term post-modern marxist in blatant disregard of the fact that postmodernists reject a historical narrative and the two groups are the exact opposite in terms of their responses to societal conditions, do you think he actually believes its all the same thing or is just using it as a convenient cudgel to attack groups he doesnt like?
It's the Hegelian dialectic in action. Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Marxism and postmodernism smashed together into little pieces and something new is created, resembling both but in reality neither
Peterson makes it all up as he goes along. It's hard to take him seriously.
Peterson? Grapple and confusion without the art. Pointless.
So.... I think I watched 6 videos before you mentioned Jordan Peterson. I have a secret man crush on him because he speaks to me as a man. I agree that there seems to be no solution. I liked a comment I think Joe Rogan said. Hard times breed hard men, leading to soft times and soft men, which leads to hard times... fascinating. Here's to hard times...!
Finished this over the summer and I really enjoyed this video. The book was one of the best I've read so far.