Shusaku Endo Silence Summary

Silence, by Shusaku Endo, describes Portuguese missionaries, Sebastian Rodrigues and Francisco Garrpe, and their journey from Portugal to Japan. Rodrigues finds himself teaching the Japanese Christians about his faith until he is betrayed to the authorities by an apostatized Christian. While in confinement, he meets his apostatized mentor, Ferreira, who convinces him to renounce his faith, and save the lives of the Japanese Christians being tortured in the pit. In effect, Shusaku Endo’s Silence describes the extensive isolation that Sebastian Rodrigues experiences that ultimately alters his perspective from caring about his own faith, to caring about the lives of others.

Sebastian Rodrigues’ priestly lifestyle defines his values and perspective on life through his eagerness to spread the word of God. Endo begins to introduce the themes of isolation and despair through Rodrigues’ early mentor, an apostatized Catholic Priest. Christovao Ferreira had, according to Rodrigues,

Their God had been “changed, altered, and adopted into the Buddhist and Shinto Gods.” (147) At Ferreira’s statement, Rodrigues is utterly destroyed. He realizes that he has been living the external life of a missionary, but not the internal life. Despite Ferreira’s revelation, Rodrigues fails to understand the need for his own apostasy, because he still puts his own priestly duty to remain steadfast in his faith above the lives of the Christians who are being tortured to death in the pit. Ferreira is quick to recognize his thinking, describing Rodrigues’ actions as his unwillingness “to betray the church.” (169) and become the “dregs of the church” (169). Yet, Ferreira solemnly tells Rodrigues’ that as priests, they are to imitate Christ, and if Christ were here, he certainly “would have apostatized for them.”