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Yukio Mishima, the celebrated Japanese writer, who committed suicide under dramatic conditions in the fall of 1970, was extremely complicated characterologically. His intrapsychic dynamics, presenting both preoedipal and oedipal conflicts, reflected aggressive and libidinal drives that were frequently fused. (For the difficulties in interpreting literary personalities see especially Bonime and Eckhardt, Psychoanalyzing Literary Characters [1977]).
Yamamoto and Iga (1975) published an excellent article on how suicide has to be understood in relation to the culture in which it takes place. As illustrative of suicide in Japan, these authors discussed both the cultural factors in Japanese suicides as well as a few of the more idiosyncratic strivings for death on the part of two famous contemporary Japanese writers: Yasunari Kawabata, who won the Nobel prize for literature, and Yukio Mishima, who was greatly disappointed at not receiving this coveted reward, but who might have done so if he had lived beyond his 45 years. Mishima killed himself by the traditional Japanese method of seppuku and Kawabata (inhaling gas).
Yamamoto and Iga suggest how early nurturing deprivation brought about unresolvable conflicts in both Kawabata and