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Part 1, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Glory, Heroism, and Death
Japanese Nationalism and Identity
Masculinity, Love, and Family
Reality, Perception, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
After leaving Fusako’s house, Ryuji goes to the park that they visited on the previous night. Reminiscing about their evening, he scolds himself for sounding like a fool when he tried to explain his theories about death, glory, and passion. He feels worthless, but he also knows that he’s destined “to tower above other men.” When Fusako asked why he isn’t married, he couldn’t tell her the truth: he thinks that marriage will tie him down and prevent him from answering the call of glory. But he also believes that the universe will bring him “the perfect woman” from his dreams, then use her to lure him toward death. Now, he knows that Fusako is this woman. But last night, he couldn’t even explain his dream to her.
Ryuji’s failure to explain his theories shows how much can be lost in translation when people try to depict their interior lives for others. After all, he struggles to even understand his feelings for himself: he cannot precisely explain why he thinks he’s destined for glory, why this glory is so closely tied to death, or why Fusako is “the perfect woman” for him. The course of his relationship with Fusako will show whether his ideas about his destiny are true or just a dangerous fantasy. Crucially, much like Noboru, he views his destiny as not just doing great things, but becoming superior to others and having power over them. In other words, his sense of self depends on a deep need to dominate others. And, given the novel’s constant references to Japan’s national destiny, Noboru and Ryuji’s desire for domination is also a metaphor for Japan’s former imperial ambitions.
Themes
Instead of describing his dream, Ryuji told Fusako about his life—like how rare and thrilling it is to see green vegetables at sea. He recounted how his hardworking single father raised him, how he lost his home during the war, and how his father and sister died shortly after it ended. As a result, life on land reminds him of “poverty and sickness and death.” This is why he became a sailor.
Readers can speculate about how Fusako would have responded if Ryuji told her about his dream of falling in love with her and then dying a glorious death—for better or worse, his insecurities led him to make small talk with her instead. Still, this small talk speaks volumes about his personality and character. For instance, his comment about vegetables captures the isolation he felt as a sailor and the way that life on land is just as exotic to him as life at sea is to ordinary people (like Noboru). Most importantly, Ryuji’s commentary about his past shows how loss has shaped his identity and—much like Noboru—he viewed the sea as a way to rebel against and escape from his misery.
Themes
Ryuji wanted to tell Fusako that the sea is like a woman to him, and that it taught him how to love. But instead, he just quoted the lyrics from “I Can’t Give Up the Sailor’s Life.” Fusako called the song wonderful, but Ryuji could tell that she was just being polite—she didn’t understand the song’s deep meaning or his own deep longing for love.
This scene is full of irony. Ryuji feels that his inability to communicate his deep feelings cuts him off from Fusako, but little does he know that she’s just as lonely and desperate for love as he is. Meanwhile, the song actually does communicate his conflicted feelings about giving up an ordinary life to become a sailor. Arguably, Ryuji’s real issue isn’t his failure to communicate his feelings about sailing, but rather his recognition that his feelings aren’t unique—they’re part of a pattern so common that they’ve even become a popular song.
Themes
Still, Fusako’s elegance and gentle beauty enchanted Ryuji. As he watched her body move under her black kimono, he thought of his own death. He admired her well-formed nose and lips, her expressionless eyes, and her graceful shoulders. And he thought about how it would feel to make love to her. When they kissed, “they poured each other full of light,” as though their bodies were merging into one. Fusako invited Ryuji to spend the night at her house. When they stood up in the empty park, Ryuji checked his watch: 10 p.m.
When Ryuji met Fusako, he fixated on her femininity and physicality, which suggests that these were the traits that attracted him. Of course, the previous chapter showed that Fusako’s attitude toward Ryuji was similar: she focused on his stereotypically masculine traits, like his physical strength and piercing stare. Thus, when they kissed and felt like they were merging into a complete whole, this represented the unity of absolute masculinity and femininity.
Themes
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Back in the present, Ryuji can’t stand the afternoon heat. He has forgotten to bring his hat, and he has already sweated through the dress shirt that he chose for his date with Fusako in two hours. From the edge of the park, he gazes out at the harbor. He remembers how, while watering the plants as a child, he used to splash his face with the hose. He leaves the park and contemplates the houses surrounding it. Settled life seems “abstract and unreal” to him. In fact, so does everything physical, including his own desire for sex. He will see Fusako again tonight, but tomorrow, he has to sail away. He wonders if he will “evaporate,” like a memory.
The suffocating Japanese summer makes another appearance—the opposition between the heating effects of the sun and the cooling effects of water dominate this passage of the novel. This is connected to the complementary opposition between male and female, which Ryuji and Fusako’s romance appears to unite into one. Ryuji also associates these binaries with the opposition between reality and unreality (or the physical and the abstract). Of course, he observes that distance is the only true difference between what seems real and what doesn’t: once he is far away from Yokohama, Fusako will feel as “abstract and unreal” to him as he will to her.
Themes
Further down the hill, several boys are playing—including Noboru, who freezes and stares at Ryuji. Ryuji greets him, but Noboru just asks why Ryuji’s shirt is wet. Ryuji says that he showered at the park fountain.
Ryuji’s chance encounter with Noboru suddenly confirms what he had started to doubt: that his experiences over the last few days have been real. Ryuji’s wet shirt is curious: where it’s really the result of the heat (sweat), he instead blames it on the measures he’s taken to cool down from the heat (swimming in the fountain). Of course, neither of these would be surprising for a sailor—except that it’s Ryuji’s day off.
Themes
