Ryuji Separated from Woman and Sea

The only instance in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea that the sea is given any personified description, Ryuji is thinking about how to communicate to Fusako his experiences of being at sea. He feels that “[to] a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman” (Mishima 41). Using the word “woman,” Ryuji concludes his thought with a word choice that suggests an otherness to the sea. From the male perspective of the writer and of the character, identifying as a woman may be an impossible and therefore foreign concept, which builds on Ryuji’s expression idea of being “locked up in a steel ship.”

The choice of the word “woman” rather than “female” influences the understanding of separation as Ryuji felt from the sea. A woman is “[an] adult female human being. The counterpart of man,” while a female is “[paired] or contrasted with male. A member of this sex in a group or set of persons of both sexes” (Oxford English Dictionary). Both definitions connote an opposition to man or males, but the definition of “female” includes the idea of pairing with males, as if the two sexes were inextricably connected. The lack of that “paired” notion in the definition of “woman” omits that sense of connection between the sexes and furthers Ryuji’s separation from the sea and from the “woman.”

The fact that the only instance of a personified sea in the novel is a gendered personification creates a dyadic relationship. Using the word “woman” to personify the sea separates and compares gendered perceptions of natural and societal life in Ryuji’s experience at sea. It creates a man-against-nature connotation, as well as a man-opposite-woman concept. The sea becomes an identity as foreign to Ryuji as the woman, and the separation grows between Ryuji and the sea. Personifying the sea as a woman fosters the concept that Ryuji can, as the translated title of the novel suggests, fall from grace with it, because the personification makes him, as a male, Japanese character of the 1960’s, dyadic to and separated from the sea.

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Works Cited

Mishima, Yukio. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Trans. John Nathan. New York, New York: Vintage International, 1994. Print.

Oxford English Dictionary. female, n. and adj. 16 Oct. 2016 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/69157>.

Oxford English Dictionary. woman, n. 16 Oct. 2016 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229884>.

Aoyama, Shirou. Yukio Mishima. N.p., 1956. Web. 3 Nov. 2016 <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Yukio_Mishima.jpg>.