The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Yukio Mishima
- First Published: 1956
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The early 1940’s through July 2, 1950
- Setting: Kyoto, Japan
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Maturation or coming of age, 1940’s, Alienation, Friendship, Beauty, War, Death or dying, Japan or Japanese people, Monasteries, monks, or monasticism, Temples, Zen Buddhism
- Locales: Kyoto, Japan
Characters Discussed
Mizoguchi, a young Zen acolyte, from a poverty-stricken background, at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion and a student at Otani University. He is a physically frail only child, and he recognizes early that he is ugly and that his speech impediment (a stutter) locks him away from easy communication with the rest of the world. Alienated and isolated, he lives virtually in an inner world, stubbornly proud that no one understands him. From his youth, he is obsessed with the beauty of the Golden Temple. At the age of twenty-one, to become free of that obsession,...
[The entire page is 885 words long]
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