The sea is often used to symbolize Rodrigues’s perception of God, particularly in its silence, its “unchanging expressions” and the destruction it can wreak. When God fails to speak to Rodrigues in midst of his suffering or intervene to protect the tormented Christian martyrs in Tomogi, Rodrigues remarks, “like the sea, God was silent.” Although Rodrigues believes that God brought he and Garrpe to Japan (bearing them across the sea), he is confused and disturbed by God’s apparent apathy towards their struggle, just as the sea itself seems unmoved and disinterested. When Mokichi and Ichizo are tortured and their remains swallowed up by the sea, the implication is that God, in his refusal to intervene or put an end to their suffering, bears some level of responsibility for it. In the same way, when Garrpe himself drowns while trying to reach the drowning Christians who were executed for his sake, Garrpe is killed by his devotion to a God who seemingly would not reach out to help him or save his people. In this sense, the sea represents Rodrigues’s perception of God as all-powerful, senselessly destructive, and ultimately apathetic toward human beings.
The Sea Quotes in Silence
This was the splendid martyrdom I had often seen in my dreams. But the martyrdom of the Japanese Christians I now describe to you was no such glorious thing. What a miserable painful business it was! The rain falls unceasingly on the sea. And the sea which willed them surges on uncannily—in silence.
No! No! I shook my head. If God does not exist, how can man endure the monotony of the sea and its cruel lack of emotion? […] From the deepest core of my being yet another voice made itself heard in a whisper. Supposing God does not exist…
This was a frightening fancy. If he does not exist, how absurd the whole thing becomes.