Mickey Hua
Anthrcul 202
Book Review: Silence by Shūsaku Endō
Due Date: 12/6/2018
Sincere Silence
Silence is a historical fiction novel about a Portuguese Jesuit priest named Sebatião Rodrigues and his mission work in Japan. Shūsaku Endō, the author, was born in Tokyo in 1923, but was raised by his mother and aunt in Kobe, Japan. It was in Kobe where Endō was first introduced to Christianity and was eventually baptized into the Roman Catholic faith at the age of eleven. He studied French literature as an undergraduate and then furthered his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France. Endō was a the recipient of many outstanding awards for his works and was widely considered the greatest Japanese novelist of his time.
Silence begins with a prologue in which Rodrigues and his colleagues, Francisco Garrpe and Juan de Santa Marta, receive news regarding their former teacher and renowned missionary Christóvãvo Ferreria. They are showed by the news that Ferreria had been captured and tortured in Japan. After undergoing ‘the pit’, Ferreira had supposedly apostatized (renounced Christianity). The three students refused to believe such news and began to set their sights on a mission to Japan to investigate the matter and learn the truth about the fate of their old teacher. The first half the book is taken from the perspective from Rodrigues as he writes letters back to his home church in Portugal on his mission work in Japan. The second half of the book is taken from a third person perspective as a narrator describes what happens to the priest after he is captured and imprisoned by the Japanese.
Sebatião (Sebastian) Rodrigues, the main protagonist of this book, is faced with a great deal of trials and tribulations as his faith is put to the test in the “swamp of Japan” (Endō 2016: 199). Endō does an excellent job of developing Rodrigues’s character from the very beginning. From the prologue the reader is made aware that Rodrigues entered religious life at the age of seventeen and studied with Marta and Garrpe at the seminary of Campolide. It is clear from the text that Rodrigues had little troubles back in Portugal for being a Christian. During a scene in the book when he is with Kichijirō, an apostate beggar, Rodrigues recounts of his time as a believer in Portugal, “I recalled the days when the churches had been decorated with flowers, when the Christians had brought gifts of fish and rice” (Endō 2016: 78). He mentions fish and rice because of his current circumstances of having no food and constantly being on the run as he tries to avoid being captured by the Japanese authorities. Here Endō humanizes Rodrigues by displaying his basic human needs which aids the reader in empathizing with him as he begins to struggle with the hostile environment toward Christianity that existed in Japan. Endō does this excellently throughout the book which helps the reader in understanding Rodrigues’s decision making.
Endō does a really nice job of using Kichijiro as Rodrigues’s foil throughout the book. Unlike Rodrigues, Kichijiro does not own up to the faith publicly throughout the first half of the book. When the reader is first introduced to Kichijiro, Garrape questions him by asking if he was Christian. “‘I’m not,’ said Kichijiro shaking his head. ‘No I am not,’” (Endō 2016: 16). Later Rodrigues would find out that “Kichijiro was a Christian who had once apostatized… Ordered to tread on the picture of Christ, his brothers and sisters had firmly refused to do so. Only Kichijiro, after a few threats from the guards, had yelled out that he would renounce the faith” (Endō 2016: 40). From then on, the priest looked down on him as if he were a lowly animal, “looking like a whipped dog [Kichijiro], pitifully glaring at me with eyes that seemed filled with resentment” (Endō 2016: 56). Here Endō shows how easy it is for someone to look down on another because of a believer shows a sign of wavering in the faith. As a priest, Rodrigues is supposed to be of higher nobility and full of grace. He should not be condemning others for making mistakes when trying to live out lives of faith. Yet he does. Endō’s commentary on faith is clear. Even priests fall in the same traps as common folk in matters of faith and grace. Rodrigues comes to common judgmental conclusion that Kichijiro is a not person of faith, “It was impossible. Faith could not turn a man into such a coward” (Endō 2016: 24). Endō’s writing makes this condemnatory comment seem so natural that the reader is looped into thinking that Rodrigues is right for feeling this contempt toward Kichijiro’s actions.
Throughout the book Rodrigues is shown as a collected, steady character who is not afraid of the potential dangers in Japan. Kichijiro is the opposite. From the beginning the reader gets the impression that Kichijiro is bedraggled, “raising up his face filthy with his own vomit, Kichijiro turn on us a glance of pain” (Endō 2016: 24). Rodrigues recounts their first encounter on the ship, “the cowardly figure of Kichijiro with his face buried in the filth clasping his hands and begging for mercy from the sailors” (Endō 2016: 34). Endō paints him as the most pitiful and disdained individual in the first half of the book and leaves the reader no sense of empathy for the character. On top of all of this, Kichijiro becomes rather annoying to the priest and the reader as the book continues. Rodrigues gives these subtle hints in a letter back to his home church, “amongst them, of course, Kichijiro keeps stubbornly putting himself for any post of honor” (Endō 2016: 45). In the second half of the book, Kichijiro continues to reappear to the dismay of the priest. It seems like the character is long forgotten but just as the reader begins to put him in the back of their mind, Endō brings him to the forefront. As Rodrigues is being transported to meet Inoue, he sees a “figure of a man like a beggar leaning on his staff and following after them. It was Kichijiro. (Endō 2016: 105). This happens several more times throughout the book and each time Kichijiro is more annoying than the last time. Eventually Rodrigues just ignores him and sits in silence.
I believe that Endō is making a commentary on the common Christian, something that most Christians in today’s age can relate to. Although Kichijiro is depicted as annoying, disgusting, and cowardly, he shows a simple sign of humility and repentance. The reason why he keeps coming back to the priest is because he wants forgiveness. After locating Rodrigues and being thrown into a prison, Kichijiro pleads, “Let me confess my sins and repent!” (Endō 2016: 123). This simple, yet emotional confession is the heart of what the Christian gospel teaches. Christians are taught that in order to receive enteral life, they must confess their sins and follow Christ. The key component is the confession as seen in the book of Matthew in the Bible, “confessing their sins, they were baptized.” It would be easy for a Christian to look down upon Kichijiro for his actions, but Endō argues the case that Kichijiro is a part of each Christian. Everyone makes mistakes and falls short, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Endō is making it painstaking clear how easy it is for the average Christian to miss this aspect about themselves. No one likes to be seen as the beggar, buried in their own filth, but when a Christian takes a harder and closer look at oneself, the character that is Kichijiro becomes more and more familiar.
I also believe that Endō does an tremendous job of bring up questions and doubts