Silence

by

Shūsaku Endō

Kichijiro is the first Japanese person who Rodrigues and Garrpe meet. He is characterized as a drunk, a coward, and a repeat apostate. Although Kichijiro tries to deny his Christianity when he meets the priests in China, both men immediately suspect that he is a member of their faith. As they discover after reaching Japan with him, Kichijiro apostatized years before, when his family was tortured and executed for their faith. Throughout the story, Kichijiro not only apostatizes several more times, but betrays Rodrigues and other Christians to the Japanese officials either for money or to save himself, taking on a role similar to the biblical Judas Iscariot within the narrative. In spite of his constant betrayal, Kichijiro follows Rodrigues all throughout his flight, imprisonment, and even after his eventual apostasy. Kichijiro begs for the priest’s forgiveness and seeking absolution, even voluntarily offering himself for imprisonment so that he can be close to Rodrigues. Rodrigues wavers between feeling sympathy, resentment, and hatred for the treacherous Kichijiro, which causes him to often reflect on Christ’s relationship to Judas—whether Christ loved the man he knew would betray him, and whether Judas was only a puppet, given the worst role in a grander narrative. By the end of Rodrigues’s imprisonment, as he realizes that he will apostatize and become as much like Judas as Kichijiro, he also realizes that Kichijiro has doggedly pursued him around Japan, and although a traitor, is ironically also his most loyal friend. When Kichijiro asks the apostate Rodrigues to hear his confession as a priest, this confirms to Rodrigues that he can still serve God, even as a reject of the Church and betrayer of the faith.

Kichijiro Quotes in Silence

The Silence quotes below are all either spoken by Kichijiro or refer to Kichijiro. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Apostasy Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

This story was well known. Its moral was that a priest does not exist to become a martyr; he must preserve his life in order that the flame of faith may not utterly die when the church is persecuted.

Related Characters: Sebastien Rodrigues (speaker), Kichijiro
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

If it is not blasphemous to say so, I have the feeling that Judas was no more than an unfortunate puppet for the glory of the drama which was the life and death of Christ.

Related Characters: Sebastien Rodrigues (speaker), Kichijiro
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:
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Silence PDF

Kichijiro Quotes in Silence

The Silence quotes below are all either spoken by Kichijiro or refer to Kichijiro. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Apostasy Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

This story was well known. Its moral was that a priest does not exist to become a martyr; he must preserve his life in order that the flame of faith may not utterly die when the church is persecuted.

Related Characters: Sebastien Rodrigues (speaker), Kichijiro
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

If it is not blasphemous to say so, I have the feeling that Judas was no more than an unfortunate puppet for the glory of the drama which was the life and death of Christ.

Related Characters: Sebastien Rodrigues (speaker), Kichijiro
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis: