Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Silence, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Apostasy
Religious Arrogance
Faith
Western Religion vs. Eastern Culture
Persecution
Summary
Analysis
Although the guards interrogate the villagers, the Christians manage to conceal any evidence of their faith and are left alone. Rodrigues is entirely satisfied with life. Even Kichijiro, who accompanied him back to Tomogi, gets along. Though the man is vain, obnoxious, and still a drunk, Rodrigues finds that he still “just can’t hate him.” However, the plight of the Japanese peasants is brutal. They rarely get to eat rice, very few have any animals, and they subsist in squalor on potatoes, few vegetables, or roots. They are “slaves of the samurai” who in turn are servants of the land-owning feudal lords, who wield absolute power over their subjects, even more than a king.
Rodrigues’s inability to truly hate Kichijiro may stem from the fact that he recognizes some element of himself in Kichijiro’s weakness and vanity, even if Rodrigues is not fully cognizant of it yet. The oppressive nature of the peasants’ lives under a Buddhist government again suggests that, on some level, Buddhism and the prevailing power structure fails them and Christianity thus has something to offer in its hope and promise of heaven and eventual relief from suffering.
Themes
One afternoon, a fierce samurai and his men storm the village, announcing that an informer has reported Christians living among them. After the priests bury their possessions beneath the charcoal hut, they descend the mountain and watch the affair through the trees. The samurai can find no evidence of Christianity, but announces that unless the villagers admit to practicing the forbidden religion, they will take a hostage, and then another in three days’ time. The samurai’s men drag away the village’s elder, an old and frail man.
The religious persecution depicted in the story is particularly insidious in that it links the suffering of each individual to the people around them. It may be one thing to die for one’s own convictions, but to watch other people suffer and die for the sake of someone else’s convictions is especially morbid and haunting, making the dilemma of apostasy far less clear-cut or morally black-and-white.
Themes
The priests feel as if they should leave to spare the villagers any further suffering. The villagers are themselves divided between protecting the priests or sending them away. As promised, another samurai arrives, but this one is older and very gentle, trying to persuade rather than threaten. He tells the villagers that they have nothing to fear from him if they have committed no crime, but all the same he needs three hostages to return with him to Nagasaki and would like volunteers. The villagers decide that Kichijiro should go—to his horror—since he is a stranger with no family for which to care. Mokichi and Ichizo volunteer as well.
This passage introduces the moral dilemma of whether it is right for the priests to allow the villagers to suffer on their behalf, even if the villagers do so willingly. This moral dilemma becomes the central conflict of the novel, driving the other themes of apostasy, faith, and religious compatibility. Significantly, the author never finds a clear answer. While the story is a widely-regarded classic among many, this ambivalence causes it to be rejected by many readers who dislike the moral ambiguity and the difficult questions it raises.
Themes
The night before they must go to Nagasaki, the three men ask the priests what they should do if they are told to apostatize and place their foot upon the fumie (a bronze etching of Christ made by the government specifically for Christians to apostatize with). In a rush of pity and passion, Rodrigues shouts that they must apostatize and save themselves, but Garrpe looks at him “reproachfully” and he feels he should not have said it. Kichijiro asks why God should place such a burden upon them when they have committed no sin, but the priests cannot answer.
Rodrigues’s advice that the villagers should apostatize not only foreshadows his own eventual apostasy, but also reveals the difference between himself and Garrpe. Garrpe is faithful until the end, even when it means others’ suffering and death, while Rodrigues is ultimately broken by others’ suffering. Also, Kichijiro’s question introduces the question of God’s justice and why He should be silent while His followers suffer.
Themes
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Rodrigues is haunted by Kichijiro’s question. On the one hand, he feels that God must have some good purpose in mind. Yet so much blood has already been spilled by the Japanese Christians for the sake of their faith. and “in the face of this terrible and merciless sacrifice offered up to him, God has remained silent.” Meanwhile at the magistrate’s office, Kichijiro, Ichizo, and Mokichi stamp on the fumie. However, their interrogator notes that their faces seem pained, so he orders them to also spit on the crucifix and slander the Virgin Mary. Kichijiro does so, painfully, and is released and disappears, but Mokichi and Ichizo cannot bring themselves to do so, and are imprisoned for 10 days.
Rodrigues’s conflict between God’s providence and His silence while Christians suffer makes its first true appearance. This inner conflict will grow over the course of the story and present yet another difficult and ambiguous moral dilemma. There is an irony in the fact that, although Mokichi and Ichizo attempt to apostatize, their strong conviction becomes a weakness that they cannot overcome, while Kichijiro’s weak conviction gives him the strength to fully and shamefully apostatize and escape.
Themes
Officials ride into the village and announce that Mokichi and Ichizo will be executed by the “water punishment,” meaning that they will be tied to poles and left to be buffeted by the tide at the edge of the sea for many days. A procession of officials arrives two days later with Mokichi and Ichizo tightly bound. As workers prepare the poles, an official orders a fire built so the prisoners can warm themselves against the rain, and even offers them each a cup of sake alcohol. Ichizo and Mokichi are fastened to the poles—made from tree trunks—and left standing buffeted by the water and waiting for death. The villagers watch on, and Omatsu weeps loudly for her brother’s pain.
Once again, the Japanese officials’ persecution carries a strange mixture of brutality and compassion. Although they are torturing two men to death, they also show enough concern to keep the condemned men warm and give them drinks to ease their nerves. This oddly-placed compassion suggests that the Japanese officials’ persecution is not motivated by animosity or hatred of Christians, implying that there may be a more pragmatic reason for such brutality.
Themes
Days pass, and amidst the waves the villagers can hear Mokichi singing a Christian hymn: “We’re on our way to the temple of Paradise.” As time wears on, the dying men eventually grow silent except for a faint moaning, almost like an animal. Rodrigues observes that the dying men cannot be discerned from the stakes they are tied to, adhering to them as if they were all the same object. When the men die, the officials burn their bodies and throw the ashes into the sea to prevent any Christians from venerating their remains. Rodrigues often looks to the sea, reflecting that although they were martyred, there is no glory in Mokichi and Ichizo’s death, only a slow and terrible silence.
The sea is often employed as an image to reflect Rodrigues’s perception of God. When Mokichi and Ichizo are slowly worn down by the sea and their bodies are eventually swallowed by the sea, it reflects Rodrigues’s feeling that rather than intervening to protect them, God, in his silence, has some part in destroying the two men. Rather than even granting them a glorious martyrdom, God allowed his followers to suffer a slow, agonizing, inglorious death.
Themes
The priests hear rumor that the Japanese officials intend to search the mountains next, and Rodrigues and Garrpe decide they must separate and flee so that at least one priest will hopefully remain in Japan. Without even the time to say goodbye, they each clamber in boats in the dark of night and head in opposite directions. Rodrigues shakes uncontrollably, feeling real fear that overwhelms his faith for the first time. The priest tries to ask the young man rowing his boat where they are going, but realizes that the man wants nothing to do with him; the priests have become a burden, even a curse upon the Japanese peasants. As they row between mountains and pull into shore, Rodrigues reflects on how different Japan use to be for Portuguese missionaries: they used to be met with warm welcome, food, and drink as often as they pleased.
This certainly is not the first time Rodrigues has been in mortal danger—they were nearly shipwrecked, caught in terrible storms, and have been in danger of arrest and torture from the beginning. It is, however, the first time Rodrigues has faced any such dangers alone. The fact that Rodrigues feels real, overwhelming fear for the first time after immediately leaving Garrpe demonstrates how much more suffering and danger one can face with the support of a friend. In the midst of this fear, Rodrigues’s thought for the luxuries priests used to enjoy suggests that he longs for such material comforts and safety.
Themes
Rodrigues wades ashore, and the rowers hastily leave. Alone, the priest wanders up the path into a darkened village, expecting to be met by Christian villagers. Instead, the village is ransacked, looking as if it has been recently destroyed. Cups and bowls have been smashed across the street, huts have been caved in, and the village empty except for a few stray cats. Rodrigues feels no fear, but the question, “Why? Why this?” echoes through his head. Looking for food, he is only able to find a bowl of water, but fatigue takes him and he falls asleep in one of the broken huts.
The narrative implies that the village has been ransacked by Japanese officials as punishment for practicing Christianity. Yet again, the suffering of Japanese Christians does not meet the glorious expectations that Rodrigues once had, but rather seems meaningless, even nihilistic. This further challenges his faith in God’s providence and justice.
Themes
In the morning, Rodrigues finds a few grains of dry rice and a few cucumbers that he wraps in cloth before wandering up into the hills, unsure of where he will go but assuming that it is safer than traveling the seaside. Wandering on, the priest finds the ashes of a small fire, still warm to the touch. Someone has passed this way not long before. The priest yearns for human company, though he knows it is dangerous, but decides if Christ gave in to such a temptation—leaving the mountains to call his disciples—than so shall he. As he walks, to distract himself from fear, the priest draws on his childhood love of botany to distinguish as many trees as he knows from the forest around him, though many of the species are unique to Japan.
The notion of Christ giving in to any temptation would likely be seen as blasphemous by other Christians, since Christ is generally held as the epitome of moral strength and purity. Rodrigues’s notion of Christ giving in to physical discomfort suggests that his own suffering is beginning to take its toll on his willpower, causing him to unconsciously begin rationalizing his own human weaknesses and failings without sacrificing his notion that he is Christ-like, thus preserving his ego.
Themes
Stopping at a puddle of rainwater, Rodrigues peers at his own haggard reflection. Seeing his face in the water, it makes him think of Christ’s face as well, imagining that “no doubt it was more beautiful than anything [the artists] envisaged.” The priest continues walking, listening to the sounds of the forest and noticing the sea’s present silence, which draws his mind to God’s silence in the face of such suffering as he’s seen. Briefly, Rodrigues wonders if this means that God does not exist, but the thought frightens him far too much to dwell on. If God does not exist, then Rodrigues’s life and all this pain are wrapped in a terrible absurdity. “If I consented to this thought, then my whole past to this very day was washed away in silence.”
Once again, Rodrigues seeing Christ’s face in his own watery reflection suggests a supreme self-importance, as if he himself is a savior to Japan. Although his beautiful conception of Christ’s face suggests that Rodrigues is still enamored with his savior, the sea’s silence also implies that the priest does not feel God’s presence, nor hear His voice. However, with his entire life and identity built upon the existence of God and the truthfulness of Christianity, entertaining such doubts for long is akin to existential suicide.
Themes
Rain suddenly falls very heavily, driving Rodrigues into a copse of trees, where he finds a small wooden hut, perhaps used by villagers for cutting wood. The rain ceases as quickly as it began and the priest enters the hut, finding a still-smoldering fire which he uses to dry his clothes. Whoever made it must be very close, and travelling slow, so it will be easy to catch up to him.
Rodrigues’s eagerness to catch up to another human being, who is as likely to be Buddhist as Christian and thus a threat, suggests that his desire for human company and physical comfort are beginning to overtake his desire to survive and carry on his missionary work in Japan.
Themes
Traveling onward, Rodrigues comes upon an overlook from where he can see the placid sea and several fishing boats and even a village. His heart races and he considers immediately running down to them, though he has no way of knowing if it is a Christian village. There are no crosses or steeples, but that is not unusual, since many churches were established in Buddhist temples. This caused many to believe that Christianity was only a revised form of Buddhism.
The Japanese Christians’ confusion between Buddhism and Christianity foreshadows the eventual argument that the Japanese never truly understood what Christianity was. This suggests that Christianity—especially as practiced and preached by Europeans—is incompatible with Japan’s Eastern culture and cannot grow there.
Themes
Suddenly convinced—without any evidence—that the villagers are desperate for a priest, that this community is the parish God prepared especially for him, Rodrigues descends the hillside. However, a voice from the brush freezes the priest in his tracks. It is Kichijiro yet again, telling him that he knows of a different Christian village, and the priest realizes that this is the man he has been following.
Rodrigues sudden and unwarranted conviction that this is a Christian village that God has prepared for him suggests a level of unreality and delusion in his faith, though this delusion could arguably result simply from the disorientation of wandering alone through the wilderness.
Themes
Conflicted, Rodrigues does not want to abandon this village before him. He suspects Kichijiro of being a traitor and a puppet, but also believes that his survival is of utmost importance; he may be the only priest left in the entire country. Rodrigues walks back up the hill and Kichijiro follows, asking where he is going and proclaiming that the price on a priest’s head is 300 pieces of silver. With “a bitter laugh,” Rodrigues remarks that then he is worth 10 times what Christ was worth to Judas. Kichijiro continues to follow him. When they both stop, the Japanese man builds a fire and offers the priest some dried fish, which Rodrigues devours.
Yet again, Kichijiro is explicitly named as Judas and Rodrigues is, by contrast, Christ. Rodrigues’s picturing of himself not only as Christ, but worth 10 times the price of Christ, once again demonstrates a staggering level of self-importance and religious arrogance. This demonstrates how one may simultaneously be serving and even self-sacrificing, as well as proud and self-important. In spite of Rodrigues’s convictions and distrust of Kichijiro, however, he quickly and easily gives in to his physical hunger.
Themes
Night falls, and Kichijiro keeps up their little fire. Rodrigues eventually falls asleep. Although he expects Kichijiro to betray him, each time he awakes in the night, the man is still there, keeping the fire. The next day as they walk, the priest distracts himself from his parched throat by wondering why Kichijiro did not betray him yet, thinking of Christ, who told Judas before he betrayed him, “What thou dost, do quickly.” For all his life, the priest never understood what Jesus felt towards Judas, why he allowed the man to betray him. Was it anger or love? Was Judas damned or saved? Though Rodrigues heard many answers during his time in seminary, none satisfied him. He cannot help feeling that Judas was only an “unfortunate puppet” to bring about the crucifixion of Christ.
This passage begins Rodrigues’s contemplation of Christ’s relationship to Judas, and the level of control Judas had over his own destiny. Although the priest considers this relationship in the light of his own relationship to Judas, the development of his thought here is particularly significant since he will himself become a Judas Iscariot figure when he eventually apostatizes. Rodrigues’s fatalistic view of Judas—that he never truly had a choice of whether to betray or not to betray—foreshadows his own feeling of powerlessness that will lead him to apostatize in spite of his convictions.
Themes
As they travel the next day, Rodrigues’s thirst becomes desperate, and he begs Kichijiro to find a river so he may drink. Kichijiro again disappears, and the priest wonders if he will betray him, but the man returns with a pitcher of water and news that there is a nearby Christian village and a foreign priest. Sensing that the priest expected betrayal, Kichijiro grovels, whines, and exclaims that he is not strong like Mokichi, but a weak man. Rodrigues pities him and thinks that in an easier time, without such suffering, Kichijiro may have lived his entire life as a good and faithful Christian like any other, untested by such pain. Kichijiro kneels and Rodrigues begins to bless him, but as he is doing so armed guards rush upon them and seize the priest. One of the guards spitefully throws a handful of silver coins into Kichijiro’s face, even as he begs Rodrigues’ forgiveness.
Kichijiro’s motivations are confusing and obviously conflicted, as he both begs for the priest’s—and thus God’s—forgiveness even as he betrays him. The priest’s recognition that in an easier time, Kichijiro could have lived his entire life as a good Christian man, reveals his slowly-changing attitude towards apostasy, suggesting that apostates may not be horrible Christians after all, but merely unfortunates caught by suffering greater than they could resist. The silver coins again confirm Kichijiro as an explicit Judas figure, and the spiteful manner with which the guard throws them suggests that even the Japanese officials despise Kichijiro’s weakness, even though it serves their purposes.
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