The interpreter appears several times throughout Rodrigues’s arrest and imprisonment, translating for the priest when his Japanese fails him. The interpreter, like Inoue, was baptized a Christian and even studied in a seminary. Unlike Inoue, however, the interpreter harbors an intense animosity towards Christianity—due in large part to an experience with a racist Portuguese priest—though not towards Rodrigues himself, as demonstrated by his often-sympathetic handling of Rodrigues’s mental anguish. The interpreter often flips between despising Christians (especially foreign priests, whom he blames for the Japanese Christians’ suffering), and gentleness. After Rodrigues apostatizes and serves the Japanese government, the interpreter acts as if the humiliating occasion never happened to spare Rodrigues any further shame. During the logical arguments against Christianity posed by Inoue, the interpreter often chimes in, providing a more vitriolic opposition against the religion.
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The Interpreter Character Timeline in Silence
The timeline below shows where the character The Interpreter appears in Silence. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...after the other Christians and prays the rosary on his fingers. After some time, an interpreter enters, speaking an oddly-accented but proficient Portuguese.
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The interpreter is scornful of Christians, even though he himself was once baptized and studied in seminary,...
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The interpreter tells Rodrigues that he will meet Inoue before long, and lists all the priests who...
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Chapter 7
...can see the peninsula, the beach and the sea. As the priest sits, the first interpreter he’d met after his capture arrives and tells him that Inoue, though he himself won’t...
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...entrapped and only their head exposed atop the roll. As Rodrigues watches the scene, the interpreter explains that all three prisoners have already apostatized the day before, but unless Garrpe does...
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...prisoners wrapped in straw into the sea as well, where they sink straight downward. The interpreter remarks that it is a horrible business, what happens here, but then turns on the...
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...them by staring at the wall of his prison cell, mumbling to himself as the interpreter’s insults and Inoue’s arguments echo in his mind. The priest was unable to save the...
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One day, the interpreter enters Rodrigues’s cell and tells him that he will go to meet someone today, someone...
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The interpreter asks Ferreira to proceed to the point of the meeting, and Ferreira’s stature seems to...
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The interpreter encourages Rodrigues to think over his decision; after all, even the work that Sawano Chuan...
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Chapter 8
The next day, the interpreter sternly tries one last time to reason with Rodrigues, but the priest tells him he’d...
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The interpreter walks beside Rodrigues’s horse and leads him to Inoue’s house, telling him that Inoue has...
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...is in a rage and beats his fists on the wall of his cell. The interpreter and Ferreira open the door of the cell and ask what the matter is. When...
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Ferreira leads Rodrigues slowly, painfully out of the cell and to the interpreter, who is waiting for them with a fumie. Looking down at the metal image, the...
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