Review on Confessions of a Mask

Masks and alternate identity is a major theme in Mishima Yukio's Confessions of a Mask. The narrator believes that throughout his youth, he had been playing a role on a stage to hide his real self. However, contrary to what the narrator claims, throughout the novel, he is not playing the role of another personality. He is simply hiding. It is only in the conclusion, when the when the war is over, and the need for order and principle and everyday life is restored, that he finally sees the creation of his other identity - the masculine figure that conforms to the society's idea of men.

Before he reaches puberty, the narrator is oblivious to the differences between his peers and himself - he simply assumes that everybody else is just like him. For example, the narrator considers his student houseboy to be wearing a mask, just like how he participates in the "reluctant masquerade." To be more precise, he comments that the boy who laughs at his passion to dress up actually "often amused the maids with his imitations of the Kabuki character Princess Yaegaki" . In other words, that boy shares both his sexual orientation and his effort to play a role. When in love with Omi's body, he comments that, "surely I was not the only one who looked with envious and loving eyes at the muscles of his shoulders and chest...," assuming that his peers also, under their mask of 'boys' share a hidden passion for Omi's perfect body.

As the narrator and his peers reach puberty, he begins to find the errors of his understanding. He finds out that his sexual orientation is the "obvious difference between [his friend's] focus of interest and [his] own" . Whereas he sees his friends having strong interest in women, he "received no more sensual impression from "woman" than from "pencil," or "automobile." Awareness of this difference in sexuality makes him increasingly conscious of the role that he plays, and the mask that he wears upon his identity.

Everyone says that life is a stage. But most people do not seem to become obsessed with the idea, at any rate, not as early as I did. By the end of childhood I was already firmly convinced that it was so and that I was to play my part on the stage without once ever revealing my true self .

He then has his misconception that he is the only boy who has the complexity to wear a mask. Instead, he comes to believe that their appearance and action perfectly conformed to what they really are. While his peers "could be their natural selves," he must put on a mask and "gain control over [his] consciousness." And thus he comes to realize that the difference that separates him from his peers, other than his sexual orientation, is the mask and the secret, "shameful portion of [his] mind" that hides behind it.

Contrary to his belief, the narrator does not have a mask on. Although the narrator believes in a misconception that he is 'playing the role of a boy,' when in fact, what he considers to be a mask is simply his body and his male appearance. The narrator is never in a real need to 'play a role' because nobody really actively tries to find out who he really is. His peers, based on his appearance, all assume that he shares the same sexual orientation as they do.

Furthermore, the male body, for the narrator, the male body has significance in the narrator's mind. With their perfect, muscular body, Omi, St. Sebastian, and Yakumo all have the "definition of the perfection of life and manhood." To the narrator, the body is not only a manifestation of manliness, it is the embodiment of the "untamed soul" that strikes a sharp contrast to what he calls the "shameful portion of his mind." Comparing his frail body with that of Omi or Yakumo, the narrator feels both aspirations and shame. His desire for their body has less to do with his carnal desire than his desire to embody it. His failure to achieve it and the obvious difference between their bodies make the narrator ashamed of his body, and tries to hide it. In other words, what he considered as his mask - his role as a male - is also part of the 'shame' that he is trying to conceal.

His relationship with Sonoko, however, brings a turning point to his life. As he becomes more acquainted with Sonoko, he begins to realize that "maybe I am becoming the sort of person who is incapable of acting contrary to his true nature, and maybe I do really love her." As he understands that his feeling has less to do with social conformity than with his honest pure feelings, he begins to hope for a possibility of a transition. When the narrator thinks of borrowing a private room in a hotel to sleep with her, he hopes that "Sure then, surely at that