The Temple Has Eyes: Setting as Character in The Temple of the Wild Geese
Keira DiGaetano
The Temple of The Wild Geese, Tsutomu Mizukami’s slow-burning thriller about the secrets and violence concealed by the monks of a famous Buddhist temple, is sparsely populated with characters at first glance. As the narrative investigates the disappearance of the temple’s head monk, his mistress and acolyte are the only other characters fully swept into the foreboding elegance of the sanctuary. However, upon further analysis, the temple itself takes on a life and personality of its own. The temple hides the crimes of its inhabitants, choosing when to separate the characters and when to push them together, acting as both instigator and investigator of conflict, finally committing the ultimate betrayal of revealing the acolyte’s responsibility for the murder of his mentor. Through lush description of the painting at the center of the temple, the setting of the novella is made human and incorporated into the action of the story. Switching the perspective of the story repeatedly throughout its progression also reveals the impact that the temple has had on the human characters, personifying the setting further by giving it autonomy in exchange for the slow unraveling of the crime concealed in its halls. In this way is the temple given a body—limbs to conceal and reveal its secrets, a heart where the titular painting of wild geese lies, and eyes that see and understand each of the characters enough to tell the story through their perspective. Mizukami humanizes the setting of The Temple of the Wild Geese in order to illustrate the physical and spiritual impact that the events of the novella have on its world.
The labyrinth of the temple’s halls creates the limbs of the story, the foundation that slowly shifts to let details of the truth slip out until the murder at the center of the novella is fully realized. Its hallways give it the tools to become the accomplice of Jinen, the student, in the killing of his mentor, Jikai, motivated by the spiritual violations that it hides behind its many doors. The temple is described as made up of many winding corridors, which Mizukami frequently alludes to in order to emphasize the distance between Jinen and Jikai, both physically and in mindset. Therefore, it is notable when that distance is lessened by way of Satoko, Jikai’s mistress and the character who most distinctly creates a divide between Jikai and Jinen in both maturity and morality. “Satoko left the shoji doors leading into Jikai’s room open” one night, allowing Jinen to see the transgressions of sexuality and religion that normally remain hidden, and immediately drawing attention to whatever tension these open doors will create (35). The ritualistic opening and closing of doors is reminiscent of a person trying to block a dam riddled with holes—every time they move to block a new hole, secrets spill out of a neglected hole.
Mizukami erects this image of corridor doors opening and closing to foreshadow the darker conclusion of the story, when the temple’s body finally gives into exhaustion and secrets spill out. While the only immediate consequence of Satoko leaving the doors open is Jinen’s interruption of Jikai and Satoko’s intimacy, he is characterized as “the shadow in the corridor,” alluding to darker secrets that the temple’s structure could be hiding (36). The darkness concealed behind the temple’s facade returns when Jinen’s guilt for Jikai’s murder is eventually revealed. He had “disappeared into the darkness of the front garden,” disclosing a bitter irony in that the same winding and complex structure of the temple that allowed Jikai to sin earlier in the novella is being used to directly harm him now (79). Jinen manipulates the temple’s body to his advantage—when he hides Jikai’s body, he is able to slip “beneath the floor of the hall,” as if the temple itself is an accomplice in Jinen’s crimes, discovering secret passages and hiding Jikai’s body (79). The temple has been corrupted by Jikai’s sins just as Jinen has, teaching it to use itself not as a passive shelter, but instead as an active character who is revenging Jikai for the same reasons as Jinen: for taking something as beautiful and sacred as a temple and robbing it of its innocence.
If the temple’s halls are its limbs, then the titular painting of wild geese hung in the temple’s main room is the temple’s equally corrupted heart. The temple is introduced under the rule of former priest Nangaku, who “lavished” the temple with affection and vitality, like a parent bestowing gifts on a treasured infant, allowing the temple to grow and thrive (12). His painting contained his “heart and soul,” an image of rich “ink and gold dust” that “seemed to be alive,” nurturing the temple with precious and valuable materials to preserve its beauty (12). All of these intensely lush descriptions coupled with Nangaku’s religious dedication gives the temple an almost childlike innocence that makes its eventual corruption even more devastating. The painting outlives Nangaku, compels Satoko to remain at the temple, and entrances Jinen with its beauty. Even when the characters’ dedication falters and doubt creeps in, the painting is a reminder of the beauty that lives in the temple, pristine throughout the mistreatment of
Jinen and the tension between Jikai and Satoko, until the story’s climax.
After Mizukami had described the geese in the painting as living, Jinen’s mutilation of the painting is a second assault. Jinen slashes the painting in a final act of destruction, tearing out the central patch of birds and leaving the painting brutally maimed. The sanctity of the temple can no longer be maintained, as the physical pain of the destroyed painting has irreversibly altered the temple’s security. In all of the chaos, Satoko returns to the painting for comfort, but the geese have been “ripped away,” much like the security of Satoko’s life (84). By acting as the heart of the temple, the painting provides the ultimate source of empathy by mirroring the characters’ emotions, facing injury and pain right along with them.
The novella’s final mention of the painting is years later, where it is left “in its damaged state” in perpetuity, actively combating any notion that the temple was unaffected by Jinen’s crimes (85). No reparation seemed appropriate, because the sins of Jikai and the mystery of his disappearance are so dark and perverse that the temple’s original spiritual purity can never be completely restored. In this way the temple becomes more fully human—while a god could reveal secrets and create chaos the way that the temple’s halls do, only a human would be as impacted as intensely the other characters. The painting’s journey from beloved to betrayed signifies the irreparable damage that the temple has undergone, right alongside its inhabitants.
The story’s shifting perspective alludes to the temple as all-seeing and all-knowing, as if each narrator is the temple itself. Most of the novella is told from Satoko’s point of view, which is puzzling given that she is never specifically classified as the novel’s protagonist. However, as the plot develops, the scope of danger widens past Satoko’s knowledge. The last few chapters are from a more broad perspective, building up to the revelation of Jinen’s crime. The eeriness of the final passage is heightened by the fact that it is such a drastic departure from the rest of the perspectives of the novella. Rather than the earlier subjective opinions of Satoko, Jikai’s murder is told with cold objectivity. The eyes of the temple track Jinen through each step of his plan, offering up the chilling voice of an eyewitness to a crime. In this way, the temple is not only victimized by Jikai’s sins, but it is also forced to comply in murder, cementing its corruption and departure from its former pristine beauty. The color of the voice that peppered in lighthearted interjections like “that is, on October 19” has now transformed into a voice that is much more ominous (9). Instead of lively corrections, the voice offers no judgement, simply “it had
happened on the evening of November 7,” a similarly time-related comment, but with none of the earlier voice’s joy (78). We can now understand that we were never truly hearing Satoko’s thoughts, but rather the temple’s interpretation of them. As the temple has watched the events of the novella play out, it has aged and hardened, as if coming to the realization that it is cursed to simply watch the horrors around it unfold.
As the limbs, heart, and eyes of the temple are each slowly corrupted, the temple’s humanity is solidified. The twists and turns of the plot damage and traumatize the temple just as they do to Satoko, causing pain that only a living being would be able to feel. While Nangaku has hopes that The Temple of the Wild Geese will cause “the number of famous places in western Kyoto” to “increase by one,” bringing the temple glory and notoriety, in reality these aspirations make the crushing of the temple’s dreams even more devastating (13). Neither Jikai, Jinen, or Satoko are free of sin, prompting the question: who is the good character, the protagonist we are to root for? By repeatedly characterizing the temple as innocent
and detailing its violation, Mizukami reveals the temple itself as the tragic hero of the novella.
Much of the lingering sadness at the novella’s end is rooted in the idea that the temple is irreparably damaged, both physically and spiritually rid of purity. However, while the material aspects of the temple are wounded, the temple’s intrinsic spirituality remains, as Mizukami takes great care to note that the untouched birds on the painting remain “wonderfully alive” (85). Despite the physical hardships it has undergone, the temple’s religious superiority as the one character who has never sinned preserves it, giving it hope for regrowth in the future. The temple achieves the spiritual purity that Jikai strove to achieve before he gave into physical temptation, that Jinen also aspired to before his disillusionment and violent corruption. By giving the Temple of the Wild Geese itself a voice and body, Mizukami subtly constructs a moral to the story, implying that no matter the corruption and darkness a person’s body undergoes, redemption is possible in the future if their mind is clear and their motives are pure.
Bibliography
Mizukami, Tsutomu, and Dennis Charles Washburn. The Temple of the Wild Geese; and Bamboo Dolls of Echizen: Two Novellas. Dalkey Archive Press, 2008.