***表象の彼方に : 三島由紀夫『暁の寺』を読む

概要

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Yukio Mishima's The Temple of Dawn (Akatsuki no Tera, 1968-1970), the third novel in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy (Hojou no Umi), depicts a climactic disclosure of lesbian relations between Thai Princess Ying Chan, the supposed reincarnation of a hero of the second volume Isao Iinuma, and Keiko Hisamatsu, a highly Americanized Japanese woman. What kind of possibilities for readings can we find in this hybrid lesbian representation witnessed through the voyeurism of the protagonist and focalizing character Shigekuni Honda? This paper notes that the time frame moves between before and after World War II and discusses Honda's voyeurism syndrome which develops suddenly in the Post-war. This dysfunctional gaze correlates with Isao's national fantasy of 'Japan' as pureness. Moreover, by reconsidering both representations of Ying Chan and Keiko, I treat their lesbianism allegorically as representations of a realistic national identity of postwar Japan tied economically and culturally to both Southeast Asia and the U.S. I argue that, going beyond the representative power argued through lesbian feminist theory, the lesbian motif represented in the novel symbolically shatters the matrix of nationalistic and homosocial 'Japan' seen through Honda's gaze.
2008-03-31