The Image Analysis Of "ocean" And "fire" In Yukio Mishima's Works

Yukio Mishima is one of the representative of Japanese post-war writers.Because of his unique and aesthetic literary world,he enjoyed a high reputation in the Japanese literary and the world literary,and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature many times.Throughout the literary creation of Yukio Mishima,it can be found that the two images of "ocean" and "fire" repeatedly appear in his works.Take The Sound of Waves and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion as examples,the "ocean"in The Sound of Waves and the "fire" in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion are not only the component of simple environmental description,but also the important carrier for expressing the inner feelings of the writer.They represent the duality of Mishima’s literary creative thoughts:life and death,youth and destruction.As a strange talent in Japanese literary world after World War Ⅱ,Yukio Mishima and his works are all dazzling existence that can not be ignored,especially the complex and strange aesthetic thought of Mishima,which constantly attracts the attention of critics at home and abroad,and the relevant research is endless.This thesis mainly takes the images of "ocean" and "fire" which appear most frequently in Mishima’s works as the starting point,analyzes the symbolic significance of two images in The Sound of Waves and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,in order to have a better understanding of Mishima’s works.Throughout the text,the main content of this thesis is divided into the following aspects:The introduction first introduces Yukio Mishima and his works,understands the influence of the writer’s growth experience on later literary creation,and reveals the writer’s literary and aesthetic views displayed behind the works.Secondly,analyses the domestic and foreign scholars’ research on Yukio Mishima’s works,and finds out the research focus and research gaps from a large number of research literature.Thirdly,based on the research status of Yukio Mishima’s works,explains the literary value and academic significance of this thesis research.Finally,expounds the main research methods and innovations of this thesis.The first chapter mainly studies the "ocean" and "fire" images in the Oriental Literature and Western Literature,and the application of these two images in Mishima’s works,pointing out the importance of these two images to the characterization and plot development of the works.This chapter is mainly divided into two parts:the first part introducts the concept of imagery,focusing on the analysis of "ocean" and "fire",explaining the origin of the two most common images in literary works and the different symbolic meanings in different cultures.The second part focuses on the image of"ocean" and "fire" in Yukio Mishima’s works and the different symbolic meanings in related works.The second chapter mainly introduces the marine imagery in The Sound of Waves.As the most frequently portrayed works of "ocean" description in Mishima’s works,the"ocean" imagery in The Sound of Waves is the most representative of Mishima’s works.The different symbolic meanings of the sea are mainly reflected in three aspects:the symbol of vitality and health;the ideal world of love and beauty;and the practical son of the sea.In this chapter,the important role of the "ocean" in characterization and plot development is mainly analyzed through text-reading methods,and the unique meaning of Mishima’s "ocean" description is realized.The third chapter continues the method of the second chapter,focusing on the"fire" image in Yukio Mishima’s works.Among the works about "fire",The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is the most representative.This chapter mainly analyzes the three different aspects of "fire" reflected in the work:the Empedocles complex of "fire",the most primitive image of destruction by "fire",and the spiritual nihilism represented by"fire".As in the second chapter,the textual reading method is used to analyze the concrete manifestation of these three different symbolic meanings of "fire" in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,and to clarify the beauty-ugly opposition shown by The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.The fourth chapter mainly describes the significance of the two images of "ocean"and”fire" to Yukio Mishima’s aesthetic thought.Mishima’s aesthetic thoughts can be summarized into two equations:life+youth=beauty;blood+death=beauty,and these two completely different aesthetic ideas mainly come from two aspects of influence,one is influenced by Japanese traditional classicism,another is the drawing of Greek classical literature.As a pair of opposite images,the "ocean" and "fire" represent the two opposite aesthetics of Yukio Mishima’s life and death.