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Swaddling Clothes | Introduction

Yukio Mishima’s ‘‘Swaddling Clothes’’ was first published in Japan in 1955 in the highbrow literary journal Bungei. Its first English language publication appeared in Today’s Japan, 1960, translated by Ivan Morris. The original Japanese title, ‘‘Shinbungami’’ simply means ‘‘newspapers’’ and the story’s standard English title is an interpretive translation by Morris. It has since been included in several English translations of Mishima’s work such as Death in Midsummer and Other Stories (1966). By 1955, Mishima was already a well-known literary figure, having received much attention and acclaim for his autobiographical Confessions of a Mask (1949) and Kinjiki [also known as Forbidden Colors (1951)]. During this early period, Mishima’s works had not yet taken a decidedly political turn and were more interested in personal exploration and the nihilist aesthetics of the Roman-ha group (or ‘‘Japanese Romanticists’’) who took Mishima under their wing.

It would be difficult to exactly locate when Mishima’s works became overtly political and whether or not Mishima even intended his early works to be characterized as such. But ‘‘Swaddling Clothes,’’ published one year prior to The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which is generally considered to criticize western importation of modernization and degraded moral values into Japan, and just ten years after Japan’s devastating loss in World War II, can be read as political critique. ‘‘Swaddling Clothes’’ is a story replete with contrasts: tradition and modernization; sensitivity and callousness; morality and amorality; genuineness and artificiality; wealth and poverty. Through the author’s omniscient narration of Toshiko’s thoughts and the physical assault on Toshiko at the end of the story, Mishima offers a vision of modernization and change ushered in by western countries that is unwelcome and violent. The ambiguous ending (Is Toshiko raped? Does she die? Or, does she survive the attack and perhaps retaliate?) asks the reader to weigh the benefits and losses of change and modernization in a rapidly globalizing world and imagine what the fate of traditional values and ethics might be.

Swaddling Clothes Summary

‘‘Swaddling Clothes’’ is Toshiko’s story. In fact, she is the only character that is named throughout the narrative. As Toshiko rides home alone in a taxi, she sorrowfully contemplates the details of ‘‘the incident.’’ The nurse she and her husband had hired to take care of their son has given birth to an illegitimate baby in their house, revealing nothing of her pregnancy until the moment of delivery. Toshiko is saddened by the attenuation of moral values in modern Japanese society as she contemplates the nurse’s situation and her husband’s blithe treatment of the event.

Unlike his wife, Toshiko’s husband, a handsome, popular actor, is seemingly undismayed by ‘‘the incident’’ and freely chatters about it to his friends as if it were nothing more than fodder for entertainment. Toshiko feels alienated from her husband not only for his inability to share her concern for the nurse’s apparent loss of moral values in modern society, but also for his own lighthearted, non-reflective participation in modern, ‘‘western’’ influenced life. Toshiko’s husband’s acceptance of and participation in modern western culture is also expressed through the American style clothing he wears and the ‘‘western’’ style, parquet-... » Complete Swaddling Clothes Summary