The Characteristics of Mizoguchi

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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This chapter is intended to answer the questions stated in the problem formulation. The problem formulation consists of three questions. The first is about the description of the main character, Mizoguchi. The second is Mizoguchi’s reason in searching the belonging and love needs. The third presents the effect of Mizoguchi’s failure in achieving his needs towards his life.

A. The Characteristics of Mizoguchi

Before going to the analysis of Mizoguchi’s characteristics, it is better to find out which type of character Mizoguchi belongs to. According to Abrams’ theory about character 1981: 20, it can be concluded that Mizoguchi is the main character. It is because Mizoguchi becomes the center of the story; he appears from the beginning until the end of the story. He plays an important role, because everything he does becomes the content of the story. Furthermore, according to Holman and Harmon 1986: 83, character can be divided into two kinds. They are static and dynamic. A dynamic character undergoes changes in their personalities, outlook, and the way of thinking. Mizoguchi is included as the dynamic character because he changes throughout the story. As a whole, Mizoguchi can be described as a mysterious person. He likes provoking doubts in the mind of others. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Mizoguchi, the narrator of the story, is a young acolyte in the Golden temple. He was born as the only son in his family. His father is a priest in Nairu temple and his mother is an ordinary person. Mizoguchi and his parents live in a lonely cape in the north east of Maizuru. Since his childhood, his father has often told him about the Golden temple p. 3. To go deeper to Mizoguchi’s traits, this part is the discussion of the description of Mizoguchi. The analysis uses the theory proposed by Barnet 1982: 12. Based on the theory, there are four ways that can be used by the readers to understand the character. The first way is what the character says; the second is what the character does. The action that the character did may indicate his characteristic. The third is what other characters said about the character. The description of Mizoguchi can be seen through the point of view and comments of other characters. The last is through the other characters’ action. The readers may indicate what the character could do. Therefore, Mizoguchi’s traits are analyzed by applying those methods. Mizoguchi can be considered as an educated person. Though he does not come from a wealthy family, it seems that education is important for him and his parents. It is proved when his parents sent Mizoguchi to school to get an appropriate education. There is no middle school in his hometown, so his parents have sent him to his uncle’s house. There, he attended the East Maizuru middle school p. 4. In some period of time, his father’s health has declined. After a year in his uncle’s house, Mizoguchi’s father visits and takes him to Golden temple. Besides visiting the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI temple, his father has another plan for Mizoguchi. His father needs Father Superior’s help in financing Mizoguchi’s school fees. “Now this child, you see…..” Hearing Father’s words, I turned towards him. In the almost dark room, father was about to entrust my future to father Dosen. “I don’t think I shall live much longer,” Father said. “I want to ask you to look after this child when the times comes” Father Dosen……but simply answered: “very well, I’ll look after him” p.28. Not long after his visit to the temple with his father, his father died because of hemorrhage p.30. After his father death, Mizoguchi join in the Golden temple. He officially becomes an acolyte in the temple. He does not need to worry about his education fee, the Superior now take the responsible of his late father. The Superior is the one who will pay all Mizoguchi’s cost of life. His course at the east middle school had been interrupted before he graduated. The Superior, Father Tayama Dosen, arranged that Mizoguchi should continue at the middle school of the Rinzai Academy p.35. His father wishes that his son will be an educated person is fulfilled. Besides going to school, Mizoguchi also works in some factories. In the temple, if an acolyte has the Superior’s recommendation to enter university, he will be taken into consideration as the next leader. In this case, Mizoguchi is the person who gets the Superior’s recommendation. “Look here” he said. “I’m planning to send you to Otani University as soon as you graduate from school. Now you must study hard, my boy, so that you’ll have a good record when it comes to matriculating. That’s what your late father would have wanted p.79. For an acolyte to have a university course recommended for him by his Superior proved that he must be quite a promising lad p.79. Besides getting a formal education, Mizoguchi also study and learn something else in the temple. The subject that he studies is not the same as in the formal school. In the temple he studies reciting the sutras, following the Superior lecture about the sacred scriptures. There, Mizoguchi also learn about disciplines and responsibility. Mizoguchi has a plus point as an acolyte; he can speak English quite good. In fact, he can speak English fluently p. 74. Mizoguchi is described as an unattractive person. It is true that human beings are the highest creatures that God has made, but nobody is perfect. Each person has their own ability and characteristic. Each person has their own personalities, outlook, the way of thinking and behavior. Mizoguchi, the main character of the novel, describes his physical appearance through the dialogues of what he said in the novel. Until then I had never seen a face so full of rejection. My face, I thought, was one that had been rejected by the world….. p. 14. If beauty really did exist there, it meant that my own existence was a thing estranged from beauty. At such times, however beautiful the face may be, it will be transformed into an ugliness exactly like my own p.43. After I had taken off my clothes, many more layers were taken off me….my ugliness and my poverty p.228. From the quotations above, the writer can conclude that Mizoguchi is not good looking. His appearance is getting less attractive because he is suffering from stammer. Since he is a stuttered, he has difficulties in communicating with others. It makes him look more unattractive in other people’s view. My stuttering, I need hardly to say, placed an obstacle between me and the outside world…… This first sound is like a key to the door that separates my inner world from the world outside, and I have never known that key to turn smoothly in its lock p.5. Uiko, as I recall, was frightened at first, but, when PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI she realized that it was I, she only looked at my mouth…she was only looking at my mouth. “Good Heavens” she said “what an extra ordinary to do. And you only a stutterer” p. 12. The only points of the difference were that I was a stutterer and that I was a trifle uglier than the others p. 35. Being an unattractive and stammer brings misfortunate for Mizoguchi in building his relationship with others. Mizoguchi does not have any close friends, he is a lonely person. Mizoguchi is an introvert. He does not like to tell his problem to the others. An introvert is a quiet person who is more interested in their own thoughts and feelings than spending time with other people. An introvert person has some characteristics, such as silent or not talkative, keeps many secrets, shy or not easy to adapt in new situations, and difficulties in making new friendship. Mizoguchi keeps the feeling for himself; he never talks to anyone else about his life and his problem. When he still in the East Maizuru Middle School, he always been taunted by his school mates. As the result Mizoguchi becomes a solitary person, he does not have any friend to be his talk- friend to share what he feels. …… I was sitting by my self on the ground a few yards away. Such was my manner. Such was my manner toward the May flowers and toward the pride- filled uniform and toward those bright peals of laughter p. 7. “Why don’t you answer me something? Are you dumb?” “I’m a st- st -stutterer,” replied one of his admires in my stead, and they all doubled up with laughter p. 7. My solitude grew more and more obese, just like a pig p.9. Since Mizoguchi is an introvert person, so it is not easy to guess what is in Mizoguchi’s mind. In other words, Mizoguchi’s mind seems full of mystery. He never shares his feeling to another person including his own parents. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Mizoguchi comes from a poor family; his parents are only an ordinary people. His father is a simple country priest and he has a shabby mother. That is why, he does not have enough confident. His unconfident makes Mizoguchi difficult in making new friendship. When Mizoguchi attended the Golden temple, there is only one person who approaches him. His name is Tsurukawa. He is the only person who wants to build a friendship with Mizoguchi. When both of them are making a friendship, Tsurukawa becomes the only person who becomes Mizoguchi’s talk- friend. Further, Mizoguchi consider Tsurukawa as his positive pictures p. 83. When Tsurukawa and Mizoguchi are in college, Mizoguchi has one extra friend, his name is Kashiwagi. Different with Tsurukawa who never says anything about Mizoguchi, Kashiwagi consider Mizoguchi as an odd fellow p.212. It is because Mizoguchi’s mind is not easily understood by others. Mizoguchi confess that he is not easily understood, because he likes provoking doubts in the mind of others p.40. Mizoguchi is a type of a person who could manage his emotion quite well. He does not show his emotion with direct action, he only keep it in his heart. As a human, Mizoguchi does not like being humiliated. However, every time his feeling gets hurt, he can accept the derision and insult from others calmly. The only action that he takes is only cursing that person inside his heart. For the first time Mizoguchi curses a girl named Uiko. Actually, Uiko is a girl that Mizoguchi likes. He adores her beauty and her lovely body. One day when Mizoguchi tries to approach her, Uiko does not receive him well. In fact, Uiko is mocking him with unpleasant words and looks. Further, Uiko reports the incident to her mother, as the result Mizoguchi’s uncle scolded him harshly. Day and night, I wished for Uiko’s death. I wished that the witness of my disgrace would disappear. If only no witnesses remained, my disgrace would be eradicated from the face of earth p. 12. Strangely enough, I had not thought about it until that moment, but now it was clear to me that I had been hoping for the death of the girl in the lodging house, who had been the witness of my shame p. 149. The quotation above shows that Mizoguchi could manage his emotion. From the outside he looks fine in facing the person who already hurts him, but from the inside he curses those people harshly. Out of the matter Mizoguchi has the power in cursing people or not, but his curse comes true. Mizoguchi is a person who does not easily to forgive and forget someone’s mistake. It can be seen from the relation between him and his mother. Mizoguchi’s relationship with his mother is not in good mood. The problem is caused by an unpleasant memory in his past. His mother had an affair with another man, at that time he was about thirteen years old. The situation became worst because his mother made love with a man in the presence of his dying father. ….We did not have much mosquito netting in our temple. It was really a wonder that mother and I did not catch Father’s tuberculosis, since we all slept together under the same net; and now this man, Kurai, was added to our number… Fearfully I turned my eyes to its source. Then, as I gazed through the darkness with wide open eyes I felt as though a gimlet was drilling into the very center of my eye balls….there was a large white expanse of crumpled sheet separating me from the thing that I saw now;…All of sudden my open eyes were covered by something large and warm, and I could see nothing. Father had stretched his hands out from behind to cut my vision p. 55. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI It is difficult for Mizoguchi to forget that incident. He does not complain or anger toward his mother directly. He only keeps silent but in his heart he can not forgive his mother’s mistake. There is a special reason that I have until now avoided writing about my mother. I do not particularly feel like touching on what relates to my mother. But ever since that incident occurred, I could not bring my self to forgive her p. 54. The fact was probably that I disliked being confronted with the straight forward expression of love that one receives from one’s blood relatives, and I was simply trying to rationalize this dislike in various ways p. 57. I sat there tensely, filled with hatred for my mother p. 60. His silence is not without reason and meaning. Mizoguchi is bearing a grudge toward his mother in his own way. He never let his mother visits him before he becomes a fully priest in the temple. It means that his mother can not see him until he becomes the superior of the temple. Besides that, during the holiday he never visits his mother. Mizoguchi can also be classified as a dishonest boy. It happens when he makes a quite fatal mistake. He caused a woman had a miscarriage; he stepped on the girl’s stomach. He never admitted his crime to the Superior. In fact, after he did the crime he gave the Superior two boxes of cigarettes. After he did the action, he never feels sorry toward what he had done. There was no need for me to confess anything that had happened. I had only acted as I had because I was ordered and constrained p. 78. Perhaps the reason that he had passed things over in silence was that he was waiting quietly in the distance for me to come and make my confession to him voluntarily. Not only that. Perhaps his recommending me for a university course was simply a bait to extract my confession: if I did not confess, he would withdraw his recommendation as a punishment for my dishonesty…… p. 84-85. Although Tsurukawa is Mizoguchi’s best friend, but he does not tell that he is the person who caused the girl’s miscarriage. Even when Tsurukawa ask him for the truth, Mizoguchi still does not admitted his crime p. 83. Mizoguchi is a cold hearted person, though his meanness only in his thought. His meanness can be seen from the way he likes in dealing with evil thought. “If the people of this world, “I thought, “are going to taste evil through their lives and their deeds, then I shall plunge as deep as I can into an inner world of evil.” p. 69. Please let the evil that is in my heart increase and multiply indefinitely, so that it may correspond in every particular with that vast light before my eyes Let the darkness of my heart, in which that evil is enclosed, equal the darkness of the night, which encloses those countless lights” p. 71. The deed of mine, which at the time had aroused no guilt feelings in me, that deed of trampling on the girl’s stomach, had gradually begun to glitter in my memory. The glitter of evil. Yes, that was it. It may have been a very minor evil, but I was now endowed with the vivid consciousness that I had in fact committed evil. This consciousness hung like some decoration on the inside of my breast p.86. The quotation above shows how Mizoguchi really enjoy his thought about evil. With those thought, it makes Mizoguchi have sense of cold- hearted.

B. Mizoguchi’s Reason in Satisfying His Belongingness and Love Needs