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Part 1, Chapter 4
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
Noboru worries that Ryuji will tell his mother about seeing him with his gang of friends (including the chief). In the morning, they didn’t actually go swimming—instead, they just visited the pier, then talked about “the uselessness of Mankind [and] the insignificance of Life.” Besides the chief, the five other boys call one another by numbers. (Noboru is number three.) Number two found a perfect meeting place behind an abandoned maintenance shed, and everyone sat down.
Noboru’s fear of his mother shows that, in reality, he isn’t nearly as bold or fearless as his supposed philosophical beliefs would suggest. It seems that, rather than actually living by nihilism, he merely aspires to it in order to fit in with his friends. These friends voluntarily erase their particular identities by calling one another by numbers rather than names—this highlights their sense of alienation and even suggests that they are interchangeable. Of course, this fits in with their nihilistic belief that, as members of humankind, they have no real value.
Themes
Noboru described watching his mother have sex with the heroic, brawny Ryuji. The chief argued that heroes do not exist, but Noboru insisted that Ryuji is destined for greatness. The chief replied that the six of them are the only people in the world who can truly do impossible things. Then, number two complained that his parents refused to buy him an air rifle because it would be too dangerous. In response, the chief gave a monologue about how life is inherently dangerous because it requires embracing chaos and destroying the order of the world in order to recreate it. Society and school are meaningless, the chief concluded. But Noboru said that the sea must have some meaning. The chief called the sea “permissible,” but said that ships are meaningless. Noboru and the chief both accused each other of not understanding.
Noboru’s admiration for Ryuji suggests that, despite his professed nihilism, he really does believe in something: heroism, masculinity, and glory. Of course, his aspiration to Ryuji’s heroism is really about an admiration for Ryuji’s power. Thus, Noboru’s idea of heroism is almost identical to Ryuji’s idea that he’s destined for glory, and the chief’s belief in the gang’s special destiny to save the world. In particular, the chief objects to Noboru’s ideas about Ryuji because he views Ryuji as a threat to the group’s special status. Of course, this raises the question of what happens when multiple people who consider themselves destined to save the world try to do so in incompatible ways. The chief’s talk about chaos, order, and the “permissible” sea is a confusing jumble. But his argument is essentially that since the boys find the world and society meaningless, they are responsible for creating meaning in it through their own actions. Mishima’s interest in a small group’s special power to control the fate of the world also reflects his commitment to Japan’s former empire, which viewed setting a new global order as its destiny.
Themes
When the boys started eating, the elderly warehouse watchman came over to their meeting place but said that they could stay. After he left, number four mocked him for being common and simpleminded. Proud of their “matchless inhumanity,” the boys munched on the extravagant lunches their mothers packed them. As Noboru ate under the sweltering sun, he imagined visiting the tropics. The chief mocked Noboru for daydreaming, but Noboru didn’t respond. The chief has “trained” his gang by showing them pictures of “intercourse in every conceivable position” and teaching them about the moral and intellectual worthlessness of sex. Next, the chief invited the rest of the gang to help him find a cat and then follow him to his house.
The gang’s interactions with the warehouse watchman and packed lunches show the contradiction between their actual lives and the moral principles they claim to believe in. First, they play the part of innocent young boys to appease the watchman, while inwardly praising themselves for “matchless inhumanity.” Second, while thinking of themselves as all-powerful and totally autonomous, they are actually dependent on their affluent families’ support to fulfill their day-to-day needs. They would certainly believe that their ability to lie and take advantage of their families’ resources speaks to their ingeniousness, but in reality, it suggests that their youth and privilege have given them an unrealistic view of the world. Finally, the gang’s detached, scientific attitude toward sex explains how Noboru thinks of his mother when he sees her through the peephole. Rather than viewing sex as a source of pleasure or glorious procreation, they view it as meaningless—probably because they value neither pleasure nor procreation.
Themes
As usual, the chief’s large house was quiet and empty, and the boys went to his garden shed. They caught a tiny stray kitten, then undressed and took turns cooling off from the heat with water from the sink. The chief instructed Noboru to kill the kitten. Noboru felt his “hard, cold heart” start beating faster as he grabbed the kitten around the neck. He thought about the chief’s belief in giving meaning to the world through murder. Noboru threw the kitten at a log as hard as he could, then picked it up and did it again. The kitten fell over dead.
Like Ryuji before his date, the boys try to cool off from the heat before their ritual killing. This is an example of how Mishima subtly links love with death throughout the novel—not just in Ryuji’s internal monologues, but also in the plot itself. Unlike the gang’s discussion, this ritual killing suggests that the boys are actually taking action in line with its beliefs. Killing the kitten is a way to symbolically reject life and society—which the boys consider to be meaningless. However, murder does not seem to mean anything besides a rejection of life and society. Thus, it’s unclear why Noboru and the chief believe that senseless violence will help the world or restore it to greatness. The boys could have a deeper, more complex philosophy about this matter—or all their talk about the meaning of society could be just a cover for their desire for power and rebellion.
Themes
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The chief took a pair of scissors and started skinning the kitten’s corpse. For the boys, the cat’s organs represented the naked inner secret of life. Noboru remembered seeing his mother naked with Ryuji, but he felt that the kitten was even more naked—it was “in direct and tingling contact with the kernel of the world.” The chief cut out the liver, sliced apart the colon, and then tore out the heart and crushed it between his fingers. Noboru imagined the kitten “finding wholeness and perfection” through death, and he proudly told himself, “I can do anything, no matter how awful.” The chief praised Noboru for finally becoming a “real man.”
For some readers, the chief dismembering the kitten might be even more disturbing than Noboru murdering it. Of course, Mishima uses this scene to call attention to how most people’s actions and worldviews are constrained by their respect for the sanctity of life. But the boys don’t share this belief—instead, they worship death and destruction. In particular, the chief presents murder as a way to understand the true nature of reality: he says that the kitten’s organs represent the truth of its being, whereas its skin is just a misleading outer shell. This shows that he views people and animals as nothing more than biological machines, or collections of organs. In contrast, he views most of the features that people conventionally associate with identity (like the way people look, talk, and think) as mere distractions from the underlying reality. This is also why Noboru thinks the kitten is even more naked than his mother and Ryuji. Noboru’s remark about the kitten “finding wholeness and perfection” through death resembles Ryuji’s faith that he will achieve greatness through a glorious death. Finally, Noboru feels that killing the kitten makes him masculine and mature. Again, Mishima presents power—the ability to dominate others—as a key heroic virtue.
Themes
