Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Madama Butterfly

The Tradition of Hara-Kiri

The beginning of the Japanese feudal age (late 12th century) was the time when the ideals of warrior society were established. The custom for warriors to commit suicide in a hopeless situation, at first to avoid disgrace and torture but later more to demonstrate loyalty, started at this time and become a sort of ideal. The approved method of suicide, known as seppuku (or more vulgarly as hara-kiri, 'belly slitting'), was a particularly painful way to die but was well calculated to display contempt for the enemy and loyalty to one's lord. It has been glorified and romanticized ever since and even today may help explain the Japanese fascination with the subject of suicide.

A code of chivalry that guided members of the ruling Samurai (military) class in Japan, Bushido (way of the warrior) required honor, bravery, self-sacrifice and discipline, duty, and above all, loyalty to one's feudal lord, as well as skill in the use of weapons and martial arts.

The Japanese tended to give up this custom after 1868, but it has never completely died out. During World War II, the Japanese Special Air Force, Kamikaze, or suicide pilots, purposely dived their planes into Allied warships. In the invasion of Okinawa more than 6,000 suicide planes were used.

Yukio Mishima, a leading writer, became the open champion of a return to traditional values including militarism of the past. On November 29, 1970, after haranguing members of the Self Defense Forces, he thrilled the Japanese and startled the world when he committed suicide by performing seppuku.

Anastasia Stamathis

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