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In Patriotism, author Yukio Mishima develops the theme of freedom through the use of character and characterization. The short story details a single moment of perfect, sublime freedom shared by a soldier and his wife, in the brief moments leading up to their respective ritual suicides. Death, in Patriotism, is the great liberator from an otherwise harshly proscriptive life bound by protocol, moral rigidity, and highly restrictive societal roles. Patriotism’s soldier, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama, while waiting for his wife Reiko to witness his seppuku or ceremonial disembowelment, remarks “Was it death he was now waiting for? Or a wild ecstasy of the senses? The two seemed to overlap, almost as if the object of this bodily desire was death itself. But, however that might be, it was certain that never before had the lieutenant tasted such total freedom (Mishima 5). Once the decision to dispatch themselves is mutually reached, this quote illustrates the bliss experienced by both characters, who now have a few hours to do exactly as they please, knowing there will be no societal repercussions. In Patriotism’s early pages, Mishima describes both the lieutenant and Reiko as “frighteningly and awesomely serious” (1). Before their suicide pact, Reiko and Shinji live their lives on a “moral basis… by the Education Rescript’s injunction that ‘husband and wife should be harmonious’” (Mishima 1). They worship photos of their “Imperial Majesties,” and each offers total allegiance to their respective gods: Shinji to
the army, and Reiko to Shinji (Mishima 2). However, as each character moves closer to death, their actions become imbued with a sense of freedom and adventure neither has ever known. Each character begins to take liberties with his and her gender roles, for example, previously adhered to unfailingly. Shinji offers sake to his wife, and even though “Reiko had never before tasted sake,…she accepted without hesitation and sipped timidly” (Mishima 7). Similarly, the lieutenant “who had never once before helped with the bedding, now cheerfully slid back the door of the closet, lifted the mattress across the room by himself, and stowed it away inside” (Mishima 7). The joy that Shinji attaches to stepping outside his role, ever so subtly and mundanely as helping his wife with the household chores, illustrates the freedom he enjoys at that moment, a moment free of the constraints of masculinity, free of the restrictions his society places on a husband, free to be alone, and be himself, with his wife. Bittersweet though it is, Patriotism reveals a delicate and poignant moment between two souls temporarily free to express their love for one another, before death frees them forever.
Works Cited
Mishima, Yukio. Patriotism. Trans. G.W. Sargent. Mutantfrog Travelogue. WordPress, 2010.
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