SOURCE: McAdams, Dan P. “Fantasy and Reality in the Death of Yukio Mishima.” Biography 8, no. 4 (fall 1985): 292-317.

In the following essay, McAdams examines the ways in which Mishima's fantasies are played out in his fiction.

By the time the lieutenant had at last drawn the sword across to the right side of his stomach, the blade was already cutting shallow and had revealed its naked tip, slippery with blood and grease. But, suddenly stricken by a fit of vomiting, the lieutenant cried out hoarsely. The vomiting made the fierce pain fiercer still, and the stomach, which had thus far remained firm and compact, now abruptly heaved, opening wide its wound, and the entrails burst through, as if the wound too were vomiting. Seemingly ignorant of their master's suffering, the entrails gave an impression of robust health and almost disagreeable vitality as they slipped smoothly out and spilled over...