The Semiology of Callousness as Illustrated on Yukio Mishima’s The Swaddling Clothes

Johanes Claudio Perdana Napitupulu; Dimas Eko Saputro; Rommel Utungga Pasopati; Yoshua Veron Handika Putra Siadari

Johanes Claudio Perdana Napitupulu
Dimas Eko Saputro
Rommel Utungga Pasopati
Yoshua Veron Handika Putra Siadari

Abstract

Literature reflects symbols of meanings in human beings’ life. The meanings are so psychological that closely related to deeds of characters as studied by semiology by Ernst Cassirer. The Swaddling Clothes is a short story by Yukio Mishima written in 1955. It tells about a wife who imagines the future of an illegitimate newly born baby wrapped in newspaper full of blood stains as swaddling cloth. Her husband is also callous by stating that the situation is hilarious, while she keeps in mind otherwise. She seems to overthink the baby, but actually that situation indicates disparity of society. Then, how is callousness illustrated on Yukio Mishima’s The Swaddling Clothes? Through qualitative method on cultural studies, this writing explains callousness is not only psychological deed, but also reflection of condition of society. By accentuating Cassirer’s theory on semiology, ignorance depicts superiority of own values by deteriorating otherness. Modernization brings in different situation to Japan as asserted by Mishima. Poverty is widespread and the rich evades mutual relations with other class. While there are privileged babies with high moral standard, there are undernourished babies who have to struggle to live by embracing violence. In conclusion, the story shows callousness as matter of social clash rather than merely denial of everyday anxiety. That ignorance is degradation of moral shaped by modernization that removes appreciation to other people.

References

Aiello, G. (2020). Visual semiotics: Key concepts and new directions. The SAGE handbook of visual research methods, 367-380.
Andersch, N. (2023). Semiotics in psychiatry and psychology. Bloomsbury Semiotics Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences, 2, 143.
Badir, S. (2024). An archaeology of discourse. Acta Structuralica, 6.
Branchadell, V., Poy, R., Ribes-Guardiola, P., Segarra, P., & Moltó, J. (2024). Psychopathic callousness and perspective taking in pain processing: an ERP study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsae022.
Cardinale, E. M., & Marsh, A. A. (2020). The reliability and validity of the Inventory of Callous Unemotional Traits: A meta-analytic review. Assessment, 27(1), 57-71.
de Graaf, I. E., Bolhuis, K., Cecil, C. A., White, T. H., & van Dongen, J. D. (2023). Child neuropsychological functioning and interpersonal callousness as predictors of externalizing behavior in early adolescence: a prospective population-based study. Research on child and adolescent psychopathology, 51(10), 1465-1480.
Dewangga, D. P. W., Wijaya, K., Shamad, D. F., Ananta, B. R., Marharendra, A. M., & Pasopati, R. U. (2024). The Significant Expressions of Distrust and Pessimism to the Police in Franz Kafka’s Give It Up!. Gudang Jurnal Multidisiplin Ilmu, 2(3), 176-181.
Djanarko, I., & Pasopati, R. U. (2017, November). Ethical Values in Indonesian Character Building. In Third International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICSPS 2017) (pp. 214-216). Atlantis Press.
Esparza, G. (2023). The Logical Foundations of Divinity in Ernst Cassirer: Descartes, Leibniz and Cohen. In The Modern Experience of the Religious (pp. 199-234). Brill.
Ethofer, T., Stegmaier, S., Koch, K., Reinl, M., Kreifelts, B., Schwarz, L., ... & Wildgruber, D. (2020). Are you laughing at me? Neural correlates of social intent attribution to auditory and visual laughter. Human brain mapping, 41(2), 353-361.
Ibrahim, I., & Sulaiman, S. (2020). Semiotic communication: An approach of understanding a meaning in communication. International Journal of Media and Communication Research (IJMCR), 1(1), 22-31.
Innis, R. E. (2023). Semiotics. In The Palgrave encyclopedia of the possible (pp. 1469-1480). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Keunen, B. (2020). Story worlds and the Semiotic Rules of Narrative Imagination: Peirce and Cassirer as a Starting Point for the Study of Literary World Experience. Primerjalna književnost, 43(1).
Lanigan, R. L. (2023). Communication Theory and Semiotics. Bloomsbury Semiotics Volume 4: Semiotic Movements, 4, 15.
Meyer, R. E., Leixnering, S., Kornberger, M., Jancsary, D., & Höllerer, M. A. (2023). Ernst Cassirer and the symbolic foundation of institutions. Journal of Management Studies.
Mishima, Y., (1955), Swaddling Clothes, www.101bananas.com/library2/swaddling.html.
Névot, A. (2024). Rethinking Relation-substance Dualism: Submutances and the Body. Taylor & Francis.
Oktavia, D., Salsabiyla, R., Noviyanti, A. D., Budianto, S., & Pasopati, R. U. (2023). Cyberbullying and Its Impacts on Self-Loathing Behavior. In Proceeding of International Seminar Enrichment of Career by Knowledge of Language and Literature (Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 185-196).
Schlüter, C., Kraag, G., & Schmidt, J. (2021). Body shaming: An exploratory study on its definition and classification. International journal of bullying prevention, 1-12.
Smarandreetha, F. G., Ibrahim, L. N., Calista, S. N., & Pasopati, R. U. (2024). The Prominence of Psychosocial of Dysthymia Sufferers in Colleen Hoover's Novel Regretting You. Foremost Journal (Foreign Language Models, Studies, and Research Publication), 5(1), 82-93.
Štulhofer, A. (2021). Is male adolescents’ sexual aggressiveness better explained by prior pornography use or callousness? A brief report. Sexual Abuse, 33(3), 361-373.
Wijaya, K., Pangestu, I. N. R., Wulandari, S., Hariyono, H., & Pasopati, R. U. (2023). The Significance of Preservation of Memories in Yasunari Kawabata’s God’s Bones. KIRYOKU, 8(1), 47-58.