Comparison of Sound of Waves and Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
There are many similarities between Yukio Mishima's “The Sound of Waves" and “The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea,” but there are also some important differences. The endings of the two novels seem to oppose each other, however some of the imagery and characters personalities in the novels make them very similar.
In “Sailor,” one of the main characters is named Ryuji. He is a sailor, and later a father, and plays a central role in the novel. In “Waves,” Ryuji is used as the name for a character again. However, this Ryuji is not seen often in the action -- he is instead a medium through which the two main characters are forced to communicate. The Ryuji in “Waves” is also a young boy, while in
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This Westernization is something that would lead to the eventual downfall of Ryuji. In “Waves,” Churiko, a more western-thinking, college-educated girl, is the character that creates the problems which must be overcome. It seems that Mishima is trying to communicate to the readers that Westernization is not a good thing for Japan. In real life, we know that Mishima did think this was true. He would commit ritual suicide for his beliefs about the emperor. The sea is of course of central importance in both novels. Surprisingly though, the two novels do not share the same view of the ever-changing force. In “Sailor,” Ryuji describes the sea as, “another kind of prison.(16)” In “Waves”, Shinji, the main character, feels surprisingly free when he first ventures onto the sea: “ ‘I'm free!’ he shouted in his heart. This was the first time he had realized there could be such a strange sort of freedom as this.(150)” Another contrast between the two books deals with the ending. In “Sailor,” it is the fulfillment of love that causes the death of Ryuji, the heroic seaman. When Ryuji finds Fusako he stops his work as a man of the sea
...ce, although both writings are interesting in their own ways, the most interesting aspect of both writings together is that they both have a similar plot and theme. It is rare that two
Mary Shelley, in her novel Frankenstein mentions Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in several instances, undoubtedly connecting her character, Victor Frankenstein, to the character of the Ancient Mariner. There are several critics, such as Michelle Levy and Sarah Goodwin, who support the idea that Frankenstein and the Mariner share a common background. Enough so, that Shelley’s mention of the Mariner in her novel is acceptable. This is true in some ways regarding their tragic backgrounds and how both characters end up confessing their actions to others. However, Frankenstein and the Mariner have many differences when it comes down to how they ended up in their tragic situations and even what means to an end they hope to achieve by sharing their tragic stories. The biggest differences being, knowledge of what could come from their actions, and how they accept the responsibility of the deaths they caused. Shelley was undoubtedly influenced by Coleridge’s poem and while her use of the poem in her novel is interesting, and the notion of comparing the action of confession and equal lack of social “belongingness” between Frankenstein and the Mariner are comparable, the two characters run the risk of being too different to compare when thought about in depth.
Octavio Paz’s extraordinary tale of "My Life with the Wave" is exactly about what the title states, a man’s life with a body of water. Paz experiments with the norm and takes literature to a higher level (Christ 375). He plays with our imagination from the start and lets us believe the man has stolen "a daughter of the sea." These two beings try to establish a relationship despite their extremely different backgrounds and in so doing take us on a journey of discovery. The way these two characters react to one another represents the friction found in so many types of relationships. This is a love affair doomed from the beginning but destined to be experienced.
Bradbury's "The Sound Of Thunder" and Skurzynski's "Nethergrave" are both fantastically written science fiction stories. Though very similar, the themes of these books have very different underlying themes. In "The Sound Of Thunder," the main character, Eckels, faces harsh consequences due to a mistake he makes while using new technologies to time traveling. In "Nethergrave," Jeremy, the main character, chooses a virtual world over the real world, where he has feeling of embarrassment and abandonment. While both stories take their own approach on the future and what their authors' think the new technologies might be, both stories end up circling around the idea that no matter how technologically advanced the world is, there are still consequences
The Inferno is the first section of Dante's three-part poem, The Divine Comedy. Throughout Dante's epic journey into the depths of Inferno he encounters thirty monsters and five hybrid creatures. The most significant of these monsters are of central importance to his journey and to the narrative, as they not only challenge Dante's presence in Inferno, but are custodians of Hell, keeping in order or guarding the "perduta gente". In this essay I am concentrating on these prominent beasts, namely Minos, Cerberus, Plutus and Geryon, establishing why they feature in Dante's eschatological vision and discussing the sources which influenced his inclusion of these particular creatures. These four monsters all fulfil important functions as well as representing important themes in Inferno, establishing them as symbols which reinforce Dante's allegory.
This particular passage was chosen because it details the climactic moment within Mishima’s novella where Noboru and his friends, acting on their sense of betrayal by Ryuji, lure him to an abandoned military based on the pretext of hearing him recount stories of his life at sea, and end by poisoning him. This extract encapsulates a great deal of the thematic concerns and literary motifs which are present in the main body of the narrative, and brings the entire work to an abstract, almost mystical, resolution. I will attempt to demonstrate how certain aspects of this work may pertain to certain events in the author’s life, and how the spectre of the authors own meticulously planned suicide a few years later resides in the highly ritualised death of the sailor Ryuji. This extract, like the much of the narrative, is imbued with a great deal of simplistic and emotive language. There are many metaphysical allusions to the womb and maternal love in the portrayal of Fusako- Noboru’s protective and melancholy mother. Given Mishima’s hatred for Westernization, are we to assume that the portrayal of the old fashioned and traditional Fusako, with her dislike of modernity, that this work is in essence an allegorical representation of the corruption and westernization of Japanese society? The fact that Ryuji’s murder takes place in an abandoned U.S military base, suggests that there are many hidden dimensions to this work.
The underlying themes of the stories are l valid contrasts between the works. In some portions the themes are of the same facets, such as how in both books two men have a direct conflict between
Both the poem and the novel seems to compare to each other in multiple regards. First, both are "frame narratives" in the fact that the Ancient Mariner is imparting his tale to the Wedding Guest, and Victor Frankenstein is imparting his story to Robert Walton. The Ancient Mariner and Frankenstein have both committed crimes against nature that they have failed to see the wrong in until those "crimes" come back to punish them -- The Mariner's "crime" having killed the albatross, thus cursing himself and his entire crew, and Frankenstein's "crime" having stolen body parts from graves to "play God" and resurrecting a whole new form of life that he wishes to be called the creator of, but the creation he turns away comes back and kills his brother, and will seem to affect Frankenstein and everything else he shows care for in the world. Also, even though both the Mariner and Frankenstein eventually see what their actions have done and come to appreciate nature, the Mariner still must carry his weight and impart on people his tale, while Frankenstein must continue to deal with the presence of his creation, the death of his brother, and more treachery and death to come in his life. On debate, the Mariner leaves the Wedding Guest with a message to the story, and assuming from the narrative manner of the story,
A summary of the narrative “Lost in the Waves” is about a father who is maed Walt and his twelve year old autistic son named Christopher. Walt and his son, Christopher visited Ponce island in Florida. After they ate they went to the beach and then went into the waters of the atlantic ocean. When they got in the tide took them out about fifty feet in matter of seconds and they didn't think anything suspicious was going on. But, then all of sudden they were two hundred feet away from the shoreline. This is when Walt knew they were in trouble and twenty minutes later they were a mile out. As night falls, with no rescue crew coming, the dad comes to a devastating realization. That he will have to push Christopher off farther away from him. If they
Moore’s “The Fish”, was written in 1921 while Bishop’s “The Fish” was written over twenty years later (1945). The most obvious similarity is that of their choice of subject. Additionally, each poem has elements of war and that is only
Another important issue for me has been that each student participates in classroom discussion, that each student has a voice.This is a practice I think is important not because every student has something valuable to say (this is not always so), but often students who do have meaningful comments to contribute are silent. In my classes, everyoneís voice is heard as students read paragraphs which may explore a particular issue.The do not have the opportunity to refuse to read paragraphs.When I hear their voices, I become more aware of information they may not know I can provide.Whether a class is large or small, I try to talk with all students individually or in small groups so I can have a sense of their needs.How can we transform consciousness if we do not have some sense of where the students are intellectually, psychically? (hooks Talking 54, emphasis mine).
In the Fisherman story, plus the movie they both share similar concepts and views if you truly think about it. Then you have things that are total opposite if you compare the both of them, depending on the issue. In the both of them they both have some evil souls, and they both have some sort of lamp in the story line, but found it in a different way. Then we have where in the story he gets to choose they way he dies and in the movie he has three wishes to whatever he wants, but can’t use love. So we can compare and contrast quite a bit comparing the both together to see what they have in common and what not.
Mishima, Yukio. (Translated by John Nathan) The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, New York, Vintage International, 1993.
"What came to dominate the story and to leave a lasting impression was the view of man as a mystery surrounded by realistic data. A poetic divination or denial of reality. Something that for lack of a better word could be called magical realism." -Uslar Pietri
"Magic Realism" is a term used by critics to describe a mingling of the mundane with the fantastic. This may seem a straightforward enough approach unless one happens to be a student of postcolonial studies - or at least, a student of postcolonialism should smell a rat. A brief history of the term is required for us to see why the term should be deemed problematical. In 1925 Franz Roh, a German art critic, used the term to describe a new post-expressionistic form that was emerging. Essentially the art described as "magic realism" was realist but was simultaneously possessed of a strange or dreamlike quality. If one were to seek a literary analog - although it is probably better if one did not - the paintings were a non-verbal equivalent of defamiliarization. Essentially, the magic was derived from the painting technique employed by the associated artists rather than the actual content (ultimately it came to be viewed as a kind of down-market surrealism).