Page #146-147, Passage:
“‘Fair enough. Then I won’t call you Noboru any more. From now, it’s Son. What do you say, Son. Shake hands with Dad.’ Ryuji placed one hard open hand on the table; Noboru struggled towards it as though he were paddling under water. No matter how he stretched, Ryuji’s fingers seemed just beyond reach. At last their hands met, thick fingers grappled his own, and the hot, calloused handshake began. Noboru felt a whirlwind catch him up and spin him away towards the tepid, formless world he dreaded most…
That night, as soon as Fusako had left his room and closed the door without locking it, Noburu’s head began to swim. Hard heart… hard heart: he tried repeating the words to himself, but that only made him want to hold the genuine article in his hand. Hard as an iron anchor…
Before leaving the room, his mother had turned off the gas heater. Now heat and cold were mingled in a fold of tepid air. If he could just brush his teeth, put on his pajamas in a hurry, and bundle into bed, he would be all right.
But evasive languor made even removing his turtleneck sweater seem a wearisome task. Never had he waited so anxiously for his mother to appear, to come back to his room, for example, to mention something she had forgotten to say. Nor had he ever felt such contempt for her.”

The passage above takes place during the dinner at a Chinese Restaurant Ryuji, Fusako, and Noboru where Fusako announces that Ryuji and her will get married early next month and insists on calling Mr. Tsukazaki (Ryuji) Papa from now on. In the passage, Noboru reacts to the marriage of Ryuji and Fusako negatively. In doing so, Mishima reveals to the reader of the obsession that Noboru has for his mother. Mishima suggests that the marriage of Ryuji and Fusako confirms the two will live together and make love to each other while Noboru despises seeing another man stealing his mother’s love. The method that Mishima chooses to reveal the details is fascinating. In the meantime, he draws both the relationship between Noboru and Ryuji and of Noboru and his mother, Fusako. In the beginning portion of the passage, Mishima describes the first father-to-son moment between Ryuji and Noboru at the dinner table. The visual and aesthetic imagery that Mishima has an endless, dense, and unfair tone with Ryuji’s fingers being “beyond reach” and they were “thick” and “grappled” Noburu’s. Ryuji’s “thick” and grappling finger acts as a metaphor to his masculinity and strength. A negative implication of his masculinity is hinted with Noboru purposing making a lengthy trip to reaching his hands. Mishima throws in the image of Noboru “paddling through water” when he goes for the handshake. “Paddling through water” gives the effect that reaching for Ryuji’s hand is a difficult task. The purpose of the image may perhaps be that Noboru did not want confirm that Ryuji will call Noboru his son. When the handshake begins, Noboru felt a “whirlwind catch him” sending him into a world he feared, “tepid” and “formless.” The handshake acts as the symbol to mark the fatherhood of Ryuji and Noboru. Ryuji was welcoming himself to Noboru, however he did not feel welcomed whatsoever. The image Noboru being drawn to a “tepid” and “formless” during the handshake, suggests that he does not accept Ryuji as his father. In the middle portion of the passage, Mishima discusses Noboru’s first night in his room after the family dinner. Fusako does not lock his room that night but she had done so every other night. Mishima uses Fusako’s act of not locking Noboru’s to indicate that she believes that Noboru will not sneak out of the house as he had previously done so in the summer. From Noboru’s point of view, Mishima suggests that now that Fusako confirmed her marriage with Ryuji, she does not care about Noboru as much where before the dinner, Fusako made the effort to lock her son in his room to ensure that he does not get out of the house. Mishima’s image of “Noburu’s head beginning to swim” gives the effect of Noboru feeling nauseous from his mother’s lack of care. It proves the obsession that he has for his mother. Additionally, Mishima repeats the phrase “hard heart” two times. The homophones “hard” and “heart” are words that sound the same, but spelled differently and have the different meanings.