Art in a Political World

The Japan that Mishima lived and worked in had little reprieve from political upheavals. As an adolescent, Mishima would have been aware of the NiNi Roku Incident or the February 26th Incident (1936), a violent resistance movement that resulted in numerous deaths including the assassination of three high-ranking government officials when a military faction attempted to resist a large transfer of their group out of Tokyo by officials whom they claimed sought to attenuate the Emperor's power. In 1945, when Mishima was twenty years old, he witnessed the surrender of Japan to the United States which was radio broadcast nationwide by Hirohito on August 15, 1945. Japan was to be occupied by United States military from 1945-1952 and forced to accept an American written Constitution that dictated radical changes in the country's political structure. For one, Japan could no longer have a standing military force, although they...