The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

First published:Shiosai, 1954 (English translation, 1956)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Idyll

Time of plot: 1950’s

Locale: Uta-jima (Song Island), Japan

Principal characters

• Shinji Kubo, a young Japanese fisherman
• Mistress Kubo, his mother
• Hiroshi, his younger brother
• Hatsue Miyata, a woman loved by Shinji
• Terukichi Miyata, her father and a wealthy boat owner
• Yasuo Kawamoto, a suitor for Hatsue’s hand
• Chiyoko, a student at Tokyo University who betrays the lovers
• Jukichi Oyama, a master fisherman who befriends Shinji

The Story:

Shinji Kubo, a young fisherman who is strong beyond his eighteen years, is the provider for his younger schoolboy brother Hiroshi and his widowed mother, formerly the best abalone diver on Uta-jima. One day, returning from his day’s work with Jukichi Oyama, a master fisherman and his good friend, Shinji sees an unfamiliar, hauntingly beautiful face among the women helping to beach the fishing boats. The woman is Hatsue Miyata, daughter of the owner of two oceangoing freighters, who has been living with adoptive parents on another island. The boy cannot get her image out of his mind. The next night, he visits the beautiful Yashiro Shrine, dedicated to the god of the sea and within sound of the never-ceasing waves, and prays that the god would in time make him a fisherman among fishermen, worthy of a bride such as Hatsue, the beautiful daughter of Terukichi Miyata, the shipowner.

Shinji’s prayer is to come true, but not without many trials for the young lovers. On a day when the weather is too stormy for fishing, they arrange to meet in an old ruined tower. Shinji, soaked with the rain, arrives first, builds a fire, and falls asleep. He awakens to see Hatsue, unclothed, standing nearby. Innocently, she had decided to dry her wet clothes before the fire while he slept. The tender love scene that follows is as natural, innocent, and idyllic as her act, for Hatsue decides that since they are to be married as soon as her father gives his permission, both have to remain virtuous.

Shinji and Hatsue, however, had been spied on by Chiyoko, daughter of the lighthouse keeper. She, unlike the naïve, wholesome, and unlearned young couple, had “spoiled” her good nature by too much introspection and by acquiring a veneer of learning at Tokyo University. Without an inherent sense of honor, she tells Yasuo Kawamoto, Hatsue’s more acceptable suitor, what she suspects. Yasuo had also been spoiled by the gloss of culture. The whispering campaign that results has to be stoically withstood by the lovers, who can no longer be together; even their innocent letters are intercepted.

Terukichi is stern and proud, but not unjust, and he is sufficiently moved by his daughter’s devotion to Shinji to try a plan proposed by Jukichi. Shinji and Yasuo are of an age to serve an apprenticeship at sea, so they are signed on one of Terukichi’s freighters; the one who shows better character will marry Hatsue. Yasuo, good-natured but lazy, allows Shinji to do part of his work for him. Neither knows he is being watched. Then, in a heavy storm off Okinawa, when a broken cable threatens to set the ship adrift from its mooring buoy, Shinji swims through the rough seas to secure the vessel from disaster. Young Shinji proves himself, and Terukichi accepts him as his future son-in-law.

Bibliography

Keene, Donald. Five Modern Japanese Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Keene, a well-known scholar of Japanese literature, devotes a chapter to Mishima in his examination of five Japanese novelists with whom he was acquainted. Provides his personal recollections of the writers, as well as literary and cultural analyses of their works.

Napier, Susan J. Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Ōe Kenzaburō. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991. Declaring The Sound of Waves devoid of realism, Napier explores the romantic, idyllic quality of the novel. Emphasizes the story’s purity and simplicity.

Nathan, John. Mishima: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2000. This classic biography establishes the background and context for The Sound of Waves, and identifies the inspiration for the novel in the myth of Daphnis and Chloë. Includes a new preface.

Petersen, Gwenn Boardman. The Moon in the Water: Understanding Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Mishima. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979. Sees the classical male body as a dominant figure in all of Mishima’s works, including The Sound of Waves. Notes associations of fire and desire in the novel.

Piven, Jerry S. The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. A psychological study of Mishima. Piven traces the events of Mishima’s life—most notably his early childhood, spent largely in his grandmother’s sick room—to provide a better understanding of the author and his works.

Scott-Stokes, Henry. The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974. A brief section on The Sound of Waves discusses Mishima’s visit to Greece as inspiration for the novel. Explains the widespread popular acclaim given the novel in Japan, unmatched by its critical attention.

Starrs, Roy. Deadly Dialectics: Sex, Violence, and Nihilism in the World of Yukio Mishima. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994. Starrs provides a critical and interpretive look at Mishima’s work. Examines Mishima’s intellectual background, including the influences of Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche, and describes the quality of Mishima’s thought. Includes a bibliography and an index

Viglielmo, Valdo H. “The Sea as Metaphor: An Aspect of the Modern Japanese Novel.” In Poetics of the Elements in the Human Condition, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Boston: D. Reidel, 1985. This scholarly essay argues that unlike Mishima’s other novels, The Sound of Waves is exceptionally positive and even idyllic. Identifies Shinji and Hatsue as creatures of the sea.