This strategy has made Japan one of the foremost financial powers of the world in the present day, but in addition resulted in nationwide spiritual and psychological confusion that still resonates. Was Japan its personal nation, or a mere lackey of the West? Residents were also disturbed by the destruction of traditional values and culture in favor of the adoption of western, moneymaking oriented practices. This confusion redoubled when the phrases of surrender in World War II positioned Japan beneath army supervision and regulation by America. Mishima considered the destructive effects of westernization as a direct results of the disenfranchisement of the samurai class and envisioned the revival of samurai philosophy as a salve to what he perceived as the degradation of Japanese culture, tradition, and conservative mores underneath modernizing, western influences.

Though two days have passed, Toshiko, おくるみサロンドプチ in distinction to her husband, is still preoccupied by this expertise. Specifically, she obsesses about one scene that she alone witnessed. The physician who lastly arrived to attend the nurse derided her and her bastard youngster so strongly that he had his attendant wrap the newborn boy in newspaper. Appalled by the doctor’s cruelty, Toshiko rewrapped the little one in new flannel. The picture of the innocent baby in his soiled paper wrappings, however, stays.

The reader isn’t given any perception into what the nurse might need felt or even her causes for concealing her pregnancy. If Toshiko knows, she doesn’t say. She does proceed to image, with great clarity, the picture of the newborn baby boy wrapped in bloodstained newspapers. It is that this picture which haunts her and drives her actions once her husband sends her residence in the taxi. She remembers what had taken place after her husband had left the home. He barely waited until the doctor arrived after which he left, leaving Toshiko to handle the aftermath and to join him later.