The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Yukio Mishima’s novel, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, relates the story of a young boy trying to deal with coming of age in a time where his country is being pulled in two directions: the old traditional ways, and the new westernized ways. I believe that Mishima used his character, Mizoguchi, to express his feelings and confusion about how to deal with the metamorphosis that both the country and its people were going through. Despite Mizoguchi’s pathology, he can be considered ...