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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelAs one of the most talented and successful of modern Japanese writer,
Yukio Mishima includes the western style but with Japanese taste in writing his
novel. He is well-known when he did the seppuku ritual in the age of forty-five. I
am interested in his novel, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, because he wrote
it based on the incident of the Kinkaku?s burning and his novel ends with the
burning of the Golden Temple by Mizoguchi. Therefore, I am curious to analyze
what are the reasons of Mizoguchi to burn the Golden Temple. By using literary
theory in characterization and also the concepts of beauty and ugliness, hypocrisy
and Buddhism Thoughts and Truths, I can reveal Mizoguchi?s reasons to burn it.
Then, I found out that the main character, Mizoguchi has two reasons to do it.
Firstly, he hates beauty because beauty is his enemy while the Golden Temple is
the most beautiful thing in this earth. Furthermore, the Golden Temple has
poisoned Tsurukawa, the Superior, the society, and also Mizoguchi himself, so
they are really concerning with the concept of beauty and ugliness. All the
characters are influenced by the concept of beauty and ugliness so they begin to
look all the things by using that concept. As a result, they concentrate to fulfill the
concept of beauty in their life to get an admiration, adoration, and prestige. To
stop the society on concerning too much on the beauty and ugliness, Mizoguchi
thinks that he needs to burn the Golden Temple to eliminate the judgements of
beauty and ugliness. Secondly, when he knows that the Superior as Buddhist
priest is a hypocrite, he decides to burn the Golden Temple. Although his action
of burning the Golden Temple is an incorrect action, but from the Mizoguchi?s
point of view he already does the right thing for the society and himself.