Citation

Condamin C. Champ Psychosomatique 2003; 32(4): 125-135.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003)

DOI

10.3917/cpsy.032.0125

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

My aim is to try and and unravel the complex destiny of Mishima and notably his quest for immortality. Adopting a psychoanalytic point of view, I will be exploring resonances between the life and personality of the author and his work. I think that the latter corresponds to a profoundly traumatic experience in his childhood and to the morbid and authoritarian domination exerted over him by his grandmother. Oriented essentially towards aesthetic aims, Mishima constructs his literary work under the constraint of particularly pregnant fantasies, such as a profane rage towards women, and a specific primitive scene. I will study how Mishima successively attempts to gain immortality first through his literary work, which appears to be an end in itself and a denial of death ; then through the creation of a scenario of death constantly replayed in his writings, in his theatrical and cinematographic works ; and finally, by enacting his own death by seppuku. He thinks he will be able to survive through the pain of this self-mutilating act corresponding to an early and unstoppable subjection from which he has never been able to liberate himself, and which leads him to a form of self-unbegetting.

Language: fr

Keywords

Psychoanalysis; Fantasies; Literary work; Morbid domination; Self-mutilating suicide