The+sea+-+Jimmy+Pang

Jimmy Pang =**The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea**=

//The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea,// a novel by Yukio Mishima, follows the lives of two central characters, Noboru Kuroda and Ryuji Tsukazaki. Set on the shoreline, the Sea is embedded into their everyday lives and is mentioned numerous times throughout the book. The Sea is vast and likewise it holds a very broad role, essentially representing everything. One specific aspect of the Sea is its contrasting nature; it may be calm or turbulent, beautiful or polluted, stable or chaotic. Mishima employs this unpredictable nature and uses it to reflect the duality and conflicting desires behind each individual character.

Ryuji Tsukazaki, one of the two main characters, is a sailor that is engaged in a constant struggle between an erratic life in search of glory and one of stability. To Ryuji, the Sea is a source of adventure and his chance at glory, yet at the same time it is the Sea that causes him to reminiscence about the stability of land. In the extract, “//Sometimes, as he stood watch in the middle of the night, he could feel his glory knifing toward him like a shark from some great distance in the darkly heaping sea, see it almost, aglow like the noctiluca that fire the water…(17),//” Mishima personifies glory as a shark to represent the dangers of the sea and further emphasizes this by utilizing threatening diction such as “knifing”, “darkly heaping”, and “fire”. By portraying the Sea as something of hazard Mishima shows how Ryuji considers the Sea as a source of adventure. Mishima also juxtaposes glory, shown as a small glowing light, to the “darkly heaping sea”. This gives the impression that glory is something that can only be found at sea and not easily attained. On the other hand, the sea is also what reminds Ryuji of a stable lifestyle. //“ To a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious (41)." // In this quote, Mishima personifies the sea as a woman by describing it with female physical characteristics. As a sailor, Ryuji has little exposure to romance and the only means of getting acquainted with a woman would be to settle down. The sea, surrounding Ryuji with the characteristics of a woman is essentially tempting Ryuji to return to the stability of land. Moreover, Mishima also uses diction that implies imprisonment such as “steel ship” and “locked up” to emphasize how Ryuji is trapped, reflecting his desire to simply leave. These two conflicting aspects of the sea cause Ryuji to constantly struggle between a life of stability and one of adventure, creating a sense of duality behind his character. Like Ryuji, Mishima also uses the sea to represent the dualistic nature of Noboru, who upholds the concepts of nihilism yet still displays the behavior of a typical child. The juvenile side of Noboru is presented through his childish obsession with ships and the sea. Take for example the quote //“This is going to be great, Noboru said, brimming over with boyish excitement (28),”// In which Noboru is waiting to board the ship. The word “boyish” was deliberately chosen to directly address how Noboru is still a child at heart. Furthermore, the metaphor of excitement “brimming over” gives the impression of over-eagerness, a quality found in most children. The nihilistic side of Noboru is symbolized in the setting of the gang’s final meeting place. “//The pool was drained, and very quiet (160).”// Mishima uses the imagery of a drained pool and quiet setting to represent the emptiness within Noboru. Unlike previous cases, Mishima switches from the sea to a smaller body of water, perhaps to portray how the nihilistic ideals of the boys are held by them alone and not by the rest of the world.

Mishima, Yukio. __The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea__. John, Nathan. United States. Vintage International, 1965.