The Sea Symbol Analysis

The sea is often used to symbolize Rodrigues’s perception of God, particularly in its silence, its “unchanging expressions” and the destruction it can wreak. When God fails to speak to Rodrigues in midst of his suffering or intervene to protect the tormented Christian martyrs in Tomogi, Rodrigues remarks, “like the sea, God was silent.” Although Rodrigues believes that God brought he and Garrpe to Japan (bearing them across the sea), he is confused and disturbed by God’s apparent apathy towards their struggle, just as the sea itself seems unmoved and disinterested. When Mokichi and Ichizo are tortured and their remains swallowed up by the sea, the implication is that God, in his refusal to intervene or put an end to their suffering, bears some level of responsibility for it. In the same way, when Garrpe himself drowns while trying to reach the drowning Christians who were executed for his sake, Garrpe is killed by his devotion to a God who seemingly would not reach out to help him or save his people. In this sense, the sea represents Rodrigues’s perception of God as all-powerful, senselessly destructive, and ultimately apathetic toward human beings.