Yukio Mishima - Confession of a Mask

Confessions of a Mask is a famous and fascinating Japanese novel which is written by well-known author Yukio Mishima who is historical author. The narrated content of the Confessions of a mask talk about fundamentally the tale of a young boy whose name is Kochan who is implied author who grow up in World War II Japan. The tale follows him from early childhood to his twenties years old. Along with the regular pressures and stresses that come from anyone in traditional society for growing up, he must learn to deal with the fact that he is a homosexual. This essay will analyze the narrative strategy of confessions of a mask.

Firstly, narrative structure is discussed which is how the story is organized. There are four major sections in confessions of a mask. The first section is talk about the suffer of childhood of protagonist who is Kochan. At his young age, Kochan is attracted by a young night soil man because of his male beauty.

Yukio Mishima.

Yukio Mishima and Shintaro Ishihara.

Confessions of a Mask

Moreover, he is also fascinated by a picture book and the picture showed a knight mounted on a white horse, holding a sword aloft but in fact the knight is a woman, not a man. In addition, he is captivated by Shokyokusai Tenkatsu who perform her magic and he want to be Tenkatsu. He stole his mother’s cloth and dresses it up. The second section is talk about the life of middle school of Kochan. At this time, he is attracted by a painting which is called Guido Reni’s St. Sebastian. It represent the bleeding and painful. Also, Kochan is attracted by Omi because of his male beauty. He found that his ideal body shape is Omi and he gradually understands that his sexual preference is boy who looks like Omi, while...