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=**Seppuku **– Ritual Suicide and its role in Japanese literature.=

//Seppuku is a form of Japanese Ritual Suicide with a long tradition extending back to the samurai era’s code of honor. The tradition is based on the belief that it is better to die with honor at one’s own hand than to accept defeat. In Japanese literature, this cultural influence, this relationship with death is cultivated. //


 * < ==Contents: ==
 * 1) ====Definition ====
 * 2) ====History ====
 * 3) ====Ritual Method ====
 * 4) ====Seppuku and Modern Japanese Literature ====
 * 5) ====Suicide and American Culture ====
 * 6) ====Videos ====
 * 7) ====Links and References ==== ||< [[image:1.jpeg width="234" height="284"]] ||

__**1. Definition**__
Seppuku せっぷく is literally translated as "cutting the stomach" (Japan-101). In its spoken form, it is Seppuku. In its written form, it is called harikari. Harikari is commonly thought of as a lower form of the act, a more vulgar term, but there is no difference between the two.

__**2. History**__
"Religious influences from Buddhism and Shinto lead to common notions of peaceful death, calm acceptance of what is natural, and the process of becoming an ancestor" (Long 272). Seppuku was an "integral aspect of feudal Japan, 1192-1868," (Victoria) and a fundamental part of the samurai warrior code, or bushido. The ritual suicide of Seppuku was tightly bound with samurai code of honor. To the samurai, honor was dearer than life itself. A death by one's own hand to spare disgrace and/or defeat was more than a preference; a continued life in shame was a far worse fate.


 * [[image:2.jpeg]] || Not only was Seppuku chosen by oneself, it also served as a form of punishment; decreed by a samurai's lord, or daimyo, obedience to the edict was unquestionable. Even in death, the true measure of man was his "honor, courage, loyalty, and moral character" (Victoria). While samurai were in later years allowed to perform the ritual themselves rather than be executed, they were generally only allowed to commit seppuku with permission.

Samurai were also known to commit seppuku at the death of their daimyo, a show of loyalty, grief, and affection for their fallen master. This practice is known as oibara. || During the Meiji period, a chaotic time of transition between the death, both figurative and literal, of the emperor system and the start of Japan's modern era, the emperor as well as General Nogi and his wife, Tokugawa Shogun'a aide, are all known to have committed suicide. This time of turmoil is the setting for Natsume Soseki's __Kokoro__. Soseki is one of the prolific Japanese authors of the 20th century who are known to have committed suicide. It was during the Meiji Restoration in 1868 that seppuku was officially abolished by the state. Though the ritual fell out of favor, cases of seppuku did continue, notably "a large group of military men...in 1895 as a protest...and by numerous soldiers and civilians who chose to die rather than surrender at the end of Wold War II" (Japan-101). One of the most well-known modern acts of seppuku was committed publicly by author Yukio Mishima, which will be discussed further below. Although seppuku is a forbidden act in Japan today, suicide continues as in any modern society for a variety of reason; in Japan, death is still preferable to dishonor.

__3. Ritual Method__
bathing of the samurai and dressing him in ceremonial white robes. He would also be given to eat a last meal of his favorite food. It was also traditional for the samurai to compose a death poem. Standing nearby would be the kaishakunin (or second), who was charged with a most solemn, yet gruesome responsibility. The samurai, using a short blade such as the tanto (pictured here), would then, as the translation indicates, force the blade of the knife into his own stomach, making a left to right cut, maximizing the damage created by the wound. The second then brought his own sword down in kaishaku, the decapitation of the samurai. Dakikubi (embraced head) was the goal of the skilled kaishakunin, which did not fully decapitate the head but left a bit of flesh so that the head did not fall but "hung in front as if embraced" (wikipedia). || ||
 * A planned seppuku would involve a very detailed ritual. The ritual would involve the

__4. Seppuku and Modern Japanese Literature__
well-known in 20th century Japan. Most notably, Mishima was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in literature. But what Mishima is probably best remembered for at this point is his highly-publicized and failed attempt at a revolt, which culminated in Mishima's public, ritualized suicide in 1970. "In the end, the distinction between art and action had to be transcended by letting grace and courage meet in an event that would defy the very concepts of beauty and power: the utterly-symbolic, Zen-imbued death of a samurai" (Abelsen 679). So dedicated was Mishima, on November 25, 1970, he and members of his Shield Society, under pretext, staged an attempted coup. Mishima's coup is believed by some to be a pretense for the ritual suicide he had planned meticulously for more than a year. He is even known to have said upon completion of his tetrology, he intended to die. || || "Mishima's place in the history of modern Japanese literature [is] with the so-called i-novelists... a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon" (Yamanouchi 2). The work of an i-novelist is generally autobiographical in nature with the hero modeled after the author himself. Second, the hero is in search of an idealized vision; and finally, the hero, as a result, finds himself alienated from society. "In a sense, the history of modern Japanese literature may be summed up as the process by which the romantic aspiration towards the fulfillment of the ego came to be suppressed under the heavy burden of society" (Yamanouchi 3). The choice left to free-thinking artists was conformity to the bourgeois standard, or suicide. Mishima chose suicide.
 * Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was an avant-garde author, poet, and activist,
 * [[image:head.jpeg]] || Nihilism, as well as his radical politics, were fundamental to Mishima's character. This belief translates into the gang of delinquents in __The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea__, who "despise life as boring, hypocritical, sentimental, fictitious, and ultimately meaningless" (Yamanouchi 8), with the exception of the sea, which represented the void of eternity. Additionally, Mishima composed a work, __Yukoku__, in which the hero and his wife make passionate love one last time then kill themselves. Their suicide note reads, "long live the imperial forces" (Napier 75). By taking his life, the hero "is able to gratify his narcissistic and erotic desires and unarticulated yearning for an intense, transcendent, experience" (Napier 77), much like the sailor Ryuji in __The Sailor__, as well as the author himself.

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) was another of the Japanese i-novelists whose characters routinely violated the code of respectability. He committed suicide in 1948. The difference between Mishima and Dazai was that Dazai "indulged in sentimentality and self-commiseration, which Mishima could not tolerate...Mishima differed from Dazai in that he was a man of extraordinary stoicism" (Yamanouchi 4). || Another modern Japanese author who shared Mishima's loyalty to the old ways of the emperor system, and committed suicide as a result was Natsume Soseki. The Meiji Restoration was a time of great upheaval and artists such as Soseki found the new ways unlike the "Confucian society cut off from...the rest of the world" (McKinney, Soseki vii). Soseki's novel, __Kokoro__, is important not just for its literary value, but also for the faithful representation of the changes that were rapidly overtaking society. The self-inflicted death of the Emperor and General Nogi mark the transitional Meiji period as the defining moment between the Tokugawa Shogunate and modern Japan. In __Kokoro__, Soseki presents a portrait of the psychological cost of the transition. Much like Mishima, but far less radical, Soseki also believed the embrace of Western culture haunted him. On the page, Sensei speaks for his creator, "if I were to die a loyal follower's death, the lord I was following to the grave would be the Meiji era itself" (Soseki 233). __Kokoro__ is not simply a novel that climaxes with a politically-motivated suicide, but Part III of the novel serves almost as the seppuku death poem for both the character of Sensei and the author himself. The suicide of Soseki "is not only an act of despair, but is expressed half-seriously as following to the grave the Meiji era itself" (McKinney, Soseki xi).

Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), mentor to Mishima, did win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1968. It was this win that partially convinced Mishima his own opportunity for the coveted award had passed. Two years after Mishima's public seppuku debacle, Kawabata also committed suicide.

__5. Suicide and American Culture__
Suicide is not exclusive to Japanese artists alone. Some of the most notable cases of the suicides of American artists have been the deaths of Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Kurt Cobain. In American medicine, we are of the mindset, "we can never be entirely certain why people knowingly and deliberately end their own lives" (Sue 391). In American culture, suicide has "remained a hidden and mysterious act. People have traditionally avoided discussing it...because of the shame and the stigma" (Sue 392). The deaths of these Japanese authors of the 20th century, when viewed from a perspective pioneered by the French Sociologist Emile Durkheim, shows the difficulty in understanding an individual's true motivations. Durkheim named three categories from a sociocultural viewpoint: "egoistic, altruistic, and anomic" (sue 399). Egoistic results from an inability to integrate oneself in society. With the de-emphasis in modern society on the importance of extended families and community, this type of alienation is helping to increase the rate of egoistic suicides.
 * [[image:monk.jpeg]] || Altruistic suicide is simply an individual giving up their life for the greater good. In Japan, kamikaze pilots during World War II performed a pre-flight ritual similar to the prologue of seppuku, and gave their lives willingly "for the Emperor and the glory of Japan" (Sue 399). Modern suicide bombers subscribe to this type of belief system.

The final category is anomic suicide, which results when a person's relationship to society is unbalanced in some dramatic fashion, and the affected individual cannot cope. || Neither the suicidal characters of these Japanese authors, nor the authors themselves, can easily fit into any of these categories. Herein lies the difficulty in knowing exactly why a person committed suicide; the only one who truly knows the answer is dead.

__6. Videos__
__Beautiful Re-Creation of Seppuku Ritual__

__Bizarre Mishima Tribute__

__Yukoku Seppuku Scene - Produced in 1966 by Mishima__

__Mishima Final Speech__

__7. Links and References__
Seppuku - Ritual Suicide: **victorian**.**fortune**city.com/duchamp/410/**seppuku**.html

Seppuku - Japanese for Ritual Suicide: www.japan-101.com/culture/seppuku.htm

Seppuku: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

Yukio Mishima: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima

Abelsen, Peter."Irony and Purity: Mishima." __Modern Asian Studies__. Vol 30, no 3, 1996. p 651-679.

Kawabata, Yasunari. __Snow Country__. Trans Edward G. Stridensticker. Vintage International: New York, 1956.

Long, Susan Orpett. "Negotiating the 'Good Death': Japanese Ambivalence About New Ways to Die." __Ethnology__. Vol 4, no 4, Autumn 201. p 271-289. University of Pittsburgh. JSTOR. 4 Apr 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3773877

Mishima, Yukio. __The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea__. Trans John Nathan. Vintage International: New York, 1965.

Napier, Susan J. "Death and the Emperor: Mishima, Oe, and the Politics of Betrayal." __The Journal of Asian Studies__. Vol 48, no 1, Feb 1989. p 71-89. Association for Asian Studies. JSTOR. 4 Apr 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2057665

Soseki, Natsume. __Kokoro__. Trans Meredith McKinney. Penguin Books: New York, (this trans) 2010.

Sue, David, Derald Wing Sue, Stanley Sue. __Understanding Abnormal Behavior__. 8th Ed. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 2006.