A Manifestation of Modernity: The Split Gaze and the Oedipalised Space of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Mishima Yukio

Author: OTOMO R.¹

Source: Japanese Studies, Volume 23, Number 3, December 2003 , pp. 277-291(15)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which the modernist paradigm is at work in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by focusing on its spatial demarcation--a map of the Self against the Other. The boundaries of gender in this text are firmly fixed; the Mother represents corporeality, ignorance, and profanation, while the Father represents spirituality, knowledge, and sacredness. Striving to embody the Father, the narrator is forced into the position of the brooding Son. He is unable to become a speaking subject proper, nor to slip back into the comfortable pre-symbolic domain. The paper also focuses on the narrator's gaze, which constantly splits and vacillates on different levels, being unable to obtain the unified singular perspective necessary for the constitution of the subject.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/1037139032000156351

Affiliations: 1: La Trobe University

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