三島文学における老いと女性 : 「十日の菊」論

Abstract

This paper reconsiders Mishima Yukio’s drama Toka no Kiku (Tenth-Day Chrysanthemums or The Day after the Fair, 1960) as part of his Ni Ni Roku Trilogy, which deals with a mutiny against the Imperial Army in 1936, beginning on February 26. This reading de-emphasizes the male figures and instead views the text as a work that deeply investigates the state of mind of an old woman who emerges fully through the contrast between her and the description of the old male protagonist. Toka no Kiku addresses political issues such as the February 26 incident and the imperial system as its central themes, but given that the story revolves around the male protagonist, Shigeomi Mori, most of the academic work on the play to date has focused on analyzing only the male figures at the center of the work. However, the old man is depicted as a cowardly and depraved human, in contrast to the old woman or ‘kiku’, who displays the strength of the layers of old age. The old woman is the eponymous kiku of the drama’s title, which allows us to infer that Mishima was primarily focused on portraying the kiku. A kiku is a "maid" but also a source of sustenance for a family, and as such, she exerts a decisive influence on its life. In Mishima’s work, the meaning of “aging” varies in respect to men and women, but in order to influence the life of others who look like kiku, a wealth of experience is needed. Like a tree, it is necessary to have annual rings carved to give one an “aged” sense of maturity. It is rather apparent that Toka no Kiku addresses political problems such as the imperial system, and was written at a time when the author was politically active. Finally, the importance of the female character, and the “sustainable” life she embodies, is clearly important. It is necessary to look at Yukio Mishima as a writer who attempted to explore the hidden recesses of women in terms of the way they survived postwar modern Japanese society, at the same time as acknowledging that he made remarks that dismissed women, perhaps as a form of performance of machismo. We should also note that this feature became more and more apparent in this work.