Isolation in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

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Sailor Essay

Maxim Gorshkov

2009

Isolation leads many to unthinkable acts and dreams. In Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, each character is presented, to a different extent, ultimately isolated. Both emotionally and physically, isolation takes over the characters and predominantly creates chaos and the destruction of “the universal order”(13).

Mishima presents Noboru as being both emotionally and physically isolated. He is held in captivity and isolation and is left to ponder his own thoughts, reflect upon the demise, in his mind, of society, and to arguably come to not resent the times in which “[Fusako] closed his bedroom door and locked it...”(3). Through his unordinary encounters which he is enclosed in his room, he is provoked to believe that he is the “...thirteen-year-old creator...”(13), of the unarguably curious findings of his guardian’s sexuality. As he is alone in this discovery, the allusion to creationism is shaped. Noboru is the only one in control, just like the all-mighty architect, Himself. As he faux-intelligently questions the stability of the moment he had formed, he states that “if...it is...ever destroyed...it’ll mean the end of the world...”(13). This is yet another allusion to his state of isolation. Through the hopeless romantic and rather cliché idea that humans are born and ultimately die alone, he is shown to have some recollection of his isolated situation and the ability to prospect this feeling further.

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Just as the fate of Noboru’s prospect lies in death, as does Ryuji’s life path, ultimately. Through the reminiscence of his own past, Ryuji is involved in a rather open relationship with the reader. He presents the notion that others see him as “...unsociable and eccentric...”(15) on the ship. He himself recognizes that others avoid him in a sense. However, Ryuji, through his compulsive habit of “...[shutting] himself up in his darkening cabin...”(18), does not help the situation and rather is creating more of a physical and meta-physical barrier in between him and his shipmates. Through this further isolation of ...

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