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Part 2, Chapter 6
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
On January 22nd, Ryuji and Fusako make some arrangements for their wedding in the morning, then go to their store. In the afternoon, Ryuji leaves, supposedly to meet an old classmate at the pier. Fusako jokes that he might board a ship and never come back. In fact, Ryuji is really going to meet Noboru, who has asked him to share sailing stories with his friends after school. The six boys meet him on top of the hill near the pool.
This final passage uses dramatic irony to create the impression that Ryuji is racing toward his tragic, unavoidable fate. First, Ryuji believes that Noboru and his friends look up to him and are seeking guidance and entertainment in their afternoon together. But in reality, the reader knows that they look down on him and are planning to kill him. Second, the reader knows that Ryuji will probably never return, but Fusako’s comment about him disappearing onto a ship suggests that she might never learn of his death. Presumably, she will believe that he chose to abandon her instead. This suggests that the gang’s actions will devastate Fusako, too—but also that she knows that Ryuji’s fate lies elsewhere.
Themes
One of the boys (the chief) suggests going to the dry dock, and Ryuji agrees. He’s surprised when the boys lead him to the streetcar, then take it to the very end of the line. But he also notices that Noboru is happy and animated around his friends, and he’s glad that he decided to spend the afternoon with them. As Noboru’s new father, he feels that it’s the right thing to do. After the streetcar, the boys lead Ryuji up a road towards the mountains. He asks them how there can be a dry dock there, but he follows them anyway.
Ryuji doesn’t question the boys’ unusual behavior; thinking as a father, he assumes that their intentions must be innocent. Of course, readers know that this is hopelessly naïve. Ryuji now views the world through the lens of care and morality, but Noboru and his friends only believe in power and domination. In fact, they are planning to kill Ryuji precisely because they think that adults fail children by teaching them morality and encouraging them to fit into society.
Themes
The boys lead Ryuji past a power plant and through a tunnel, then up a hill and past a construction zone. The chief says that the area was once a U.S. Army base. The road ends, and the top of the hill is covered with empty fields. There’s absolutely no one around. Ryuji follows the gang across the field to an abandoned water tank. An English-language sign declares the tank U.S. property and states that trespassing is punishable by law. The chief facetiously asks Ryuji what “punishable” means, but Ryuji can tell that he already knows. Ryuji and the gang reach the top of the hill, which offers them a panoramic view over the city and out to the sea.
The location of the chief’s “dry dock” is significant. For one, it’s isolated and empty—the perfect place for a murder. In addition, its history as a base for occupying U.S. forces adds to the political significance of the book’s closing scene: it suggests that the chief’s gang is symbolically taking Japan back from the occupiers by murdering Ryuji. (Similarly, as a construction zone, it indicates that the boys are building a new future there.) This spot also offers Ryuji a view of the sea, the key symbol of his past as a sailor, and this allows him to reevaluate his decision to marry Fusako and pursue a life onshore.
Themes
Ryuji suddenly misses the sea, which he hasn’t truly seen for a long time. He sees several small ships out in the ocean and comments that the Rakuyo was far bigger. The chief leads the group to a clearing on the mountain. Ryuji asks who found this hiding place and where the dry dock is—the chief says that he found it, and that the dry dock (where they repair old ships) is nearby. Everyone sits down.
Ryuji’s longing for the sea suggests that he regrets leaving the Rakuyo—and that his relationship with Fusako may have even been a grave mistake. By calling the clearing on the mountaintop a dry dock, the chief suggests that the gang will be fixing something old and broken there—most likely Ryuji, Japan, or society as a whole. Of course, this reflects the gang’s shared belief that violence is the key to fighting the meaninglessness of modern life and bringing the universe back into its proper alignment.
Themes
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Ryuji starts telling stories about his life at sea. He describes seasickness and sings the song “I Can’t Give Up the Sailor’s Life,” which makes the boys laugh. Noboru starts playing with Ryuji’s cap and thinks about how, once upon a time, it broke free of the shackles of land and sailed around the world, into the beauty of the unknown. Ryuji tells more stories from his voyages: he discusses his first trip to Hong Kong, going through the Suez Canal, loading coal in Australia, and so on.
Noboru pictures the vision of adventure and glory that Ryuji once imagined for himself but can no longer achieve, now that he has given up sailing. Instead, Ryuji has become exactly the kind of rusty old sailor, full of dubious stories, that he always loathed on the Rakuyo. He has given up the chance to be an actual hero in order to tell children tall tales about the time that he could have been a hero. In other words, as the novel’s title suggests, he has fallen from grace. Of course, just as in the rest of the novel, Ryuji is also a metaphor for Japan itself. Specifically, he now represents Japan after World War II, powerless but nostalgic for its past greatness and close call with glory.
Themes
Ryuji notices the chief putting on latex gloves but assumes it doesn’t mean anything. Then, he sees a ship out on the horizon and starts to realize why Noboru used to admire him: as a sailor, he could have kept moving forever, pursuing his glory. But he has abandoned that life, and he is realizing too late how much he has lost. He always imagined finding glory, death, and a woman all together. But now, he only has a woman—death and glory don’t seem to want him.
Ryuji’s feelings of regret confirm that Noboru was right all along: it was a mistake to give up the heroic quest for glory for the sake of stability and love. Even if Ryuji had doubts about his destiny, he concludes, he should have pursued it anyway. However, Mishima layers on more dramatic irony in this scene. Not only does Ryuji have no idea that he is about to be ritually murdered, but he is actually yearning for the exact kind of fulfillment that this murder will give him: death, glory, and love all together. Namely, he has finally met Fusako, the woman of his dreams, and he is about to die the glorious, spectacular death he always dreamed of.
Themes
The chief offers Ryuji some tea, but Ryuji keeps daydreaming. He thinks about tropical islands, palm trees, and the promise of dying a heroic death in a majestic storm. Noboru passes Ryuji the tea, and he drinks it. It tastes bitter, but the narrator ends by noting that “glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.”
The novel’s conclusion isn’t surprising because the gang starts carrying out its plans to murder Ryuji—the reader has known about those plans for the whole chapter. Instead, it’s surprising both because they don’t finish murdering Ryuji and because the book presents the murder as a good thing. It’s the way Ryuji fulfills his destiny—and, metaphorically, the way Japan achieves its own.
Themes
