Silence by Shusaku Endo: Examining Themes of Faith and Suffering

This essay analyzes Shusaku Endo's novel, "Silence," focusing on the historical context of 17th-century Japan and the persecution of Christians, specifically the Kakure Kirishitan. The essay explores the experiences of Jesuit missionaries, such as Rodrigues and Garupe, and their struggles with faith and the concept of a "silent God" in the face of extreme adversity. It examines the religious discrimination, the practice of Fumi-e, and the brutal treatment of Christians by the Japanese authorities. The analysis highlights the characters' motivations, the themes of suffering, apostasy, and the clash between religious beliefs and cultural practices. The essay also references key academic sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the novel's central themes and historical significance.

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Silence By Shusaku Endo

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Shusaku Endo has created the characters of her novel “Silence”, with respect to the Jesuit
missionary who was sent to Japan in the 17th century in the search of persecution. That was
the time of KakureKirishitan which is a term for hidden Christians who were also the
followers of the Shimabara Rebellion (Endo, 2016). The novel has been written with a
perspective of a “silent God” which is the main character of the novel, who conveys his
views through a letter and he is observed to accompany a believer in adversity. This
perspective has been influenced by the Catholic experience of Endo’s. The religious
discrimination prevailing over Japan, and racism in France.
The characters of the novel has been quite different and the plotting of the characters has
been done in an accurate manner through understanding the sensitivity of each word that
would be uttered by the respective characters (McDonald, 2017). A Jesuit Priest belonging to
Portuguese named Sabiestiao Rodrigues who was familiar to the character of Giuseppe
Chiara, historical Italian Figure visits Japan with a motive to assist the local church and cross
check the reports that his master who is a Jesuit priest, Ferreira and has committed apostasy
(Galbraith, 2017).One more companion of Rodrigues is Francisco Garupe arrives Japan in
1639 and observes that the country has been accompanied by driving the Cristian population
underground. This revealed that it was required to ferret out hidden Christians to trample on
Fumi-e which was a carved image of Christ. The ones who refuse to the trampling, were
punished through prisoning and being killed by anazuri that is by hanging upside down over a
pit and slowly bleed (Maher, 2015). This perspective stated in the novel has reflected the
immense and the inhuman treatment of the Christians in Japan and the pressure that was
being created over the hidden Christians to trample. Rodrigues and Garupe gets captured and
was forced to swim as JapaneseChristiansand were observed to lay down their lives for the
faith, this reveals the intensity of the difference in the Japanese and the Christians in Japan
(Takamura, 2017). The glory and the proud to belong to the either religion was to present ad
this was reflected in their brutality and cruelty that each of the religion held, especially the
Japanese one. The mention of the incident that before the arrival of Rodrigues the senior
authorities has been attempting to force the priests for renouncing their faith through torturing
them. These acts has been revealing the actual cruelty that Japanese has been holding and the
sufferance that Christianity had gone through in Japan (Johnson, 2017). They were even
threatened for renouncing their faith which would bring on an end to the sufferings of their
flocks.

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These facts about the sufferings of the Christianity in Japan has been accurately stated in the
book by Shusaku Endo and she has marked the image of a silent God which replicates the
sufferings of the Christianity and the cruelty of Japanese.

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References
Endo, S., 2016. Silence: a novel. Picador Modern Classics.
Galbraith, E.C., 2017. Agape Unbound in Silence and Deep River. 5th ed. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Johnson, W., 2017. Shusaku Endo and the Quest for an Asian, Contemplative
Christianity. Sydney Studies in Religion.
Maher, E., 2015. Dealing with Human Weakness: Shusaku Endo's' Silence'. Dialog, 60(2),
pp.20-30.
McDonald, N., 2017. The silence of god. Quadrant, 61(7/8), p.119.
Takamura, T., 2017. Sebastian Rodrigues in Shusaku Endo's Silence as a Theologian of the
Cross 1. Dialog, 56(1), pp.17-27.