The Imagery of Noboru spying on his mother
Yuko Mishima expounds, “Shortly after he made this first discovery, Noboru began spying on his mother at night, particularly when she had nagged or scolded him…he discovered that it was her habit though the nights were not yet uncomfortably hot, to sit completely naked for a few minutes before going to bed. He had a terrible time when she went near the wall mirror, for it hung in a corner of the room he couldn’t see. She was only thirty-three and her slender body, shapely from playing tennis ever week, was beautiful. Usually she got straight into bed after touching her flesh with perfumed water, but sometimes she would sit at the dressing- table and gaze into the mirror at her profile for minutes at a time, eyes hollow as though ravaged by fever, scented fingers rooted between her thighs.” Noboru’s routine deduces that he is no longer a naive kid since he apprehends naked woman’s physiology. His resolution to spy on her mother on days that she castigates him render him a vengeful boy who believes that seeing his mother’s nudity is a penalty for her. The appearance of his mother’s form indicates astonishing self-love, considering that she consistently tends to her body before sleeping. Being a widow does not dishearten her from caring for her body to magnify its exquisiteness.
The Imagery of Sexual Intimacy (Ryuji Tsukazaki and Noboru’s mother)
Yuko Mishima elucidates, “It was like being part of a miracle; in that instant everything packed away inside Noboru’s breast since the first day of his life was released and consummated…Assemble there were the moon and a feverish wind, the excited, naked flesh of a man and a woman, sweat, perfume, the scars of a life at sea, the dim memory of ports around the world, the crampled breathless peephole , a young boy boy’s iron heart- but these cards from a gypsy pack were scattered, prophesying nothing. The universal order at last achieved, thanks to the sudden, screaming horn, had revealed an ineluctable circle of life- the cards had paired: Noboru and mother- Mother and man-man and sea- sea and Noboru…” Noboru experiences a sexual epiphany as a result of perceiving the love making scene in the backdrop of the favorable ambiance (the ‘moon and wind.’) Sex is miraculous for Noboru because he has never viewed any love-making. This scene diminishes Noboru’s innocence further by wakening his sexual feelings for his mother; his emblematic pairing with his a mother is representative of his oedipal captivation with his mother that his accentuated by observing her perform sex. The order that ensues in the sex scene is illustrative of the harmony which Noboru yearns for.
