Silence Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 4 Summary: Chapter 4

Ichizo and Omatsu, his older sister, proudly recount how they were able to get everyone to hide their religious articles in time so the guards wouldn’t suspect anything. Rodrigues muses on the peasants’ wisdom in their ability to pretend they are fools in a time of crisis. Still, Rodrigues wonders if there’s an informant among them. Kichijiro, now a celebrity in his village for bringing a priest there, swaggers around town. Rodrigues wonders whether Kichijiro may just be flawed and have a good heart deep down.

The officials return, this time persistent in their goals. First, they capture an old Jisama and drag him to death through the village by horse. An old samurai tells the villagers that they have been informed that Christians are living in the village among them and demand that they turn the Christians over. The samurai tells them to select three hostages for them to take until they do. Mokichi and Ichizo volunteer and the villagers select Kichijiro as a third. Kichijiro breaks down in tears and angrily lashes out at them. Mokichi asks Rodrigues in secret what they should do if they’re asked to trample on the fumie, the face of Christ. Rodrigues, surprising even himself, says they should “trample away.”

Mokichi and Ichizo are imprisoned. They verbally renounced Christianity, but the guards told them to spit on the fumie, which they refused to do. Kichijiro did spit on the fumie, so he is freed. Mokichi and Ichizo are brought back to the village for the dreaded water torture. They are fastened to wooden crosses at the edge of the ocean and left to die while the villagers watch. Rodrigues now begins to have a crisis of faith for the first time. He can’t believe that God would be silent in the face of such torture of innocent people and wonders why God is doing nothing. Martyrdom, he realizes, is not a glorious thing as described in the Bible but a miserable, pitiful thing, horrifying to watch.

Rodrigues and Garrpe decide to split up. Garrpe heads to Hirado, and Rodrigues heads to another village nearby. When Rodrigues arrives, he finds the village has been abandoned. He sees a recently lit fire, however, and realizes someone is nearby. Rodrigues walks on alone, wondering if God exists. Suddenly, Kichijiro emerges from the woods—it turns out he is the man who lit the fire. Kichijiro feeds Rodrigues some fish and promises to help him find a place to hide. While Kichijiro goes to fetch Rodrigues some water, Rodrigues wonders if Kichijiro is trying to trap him. Kichijiro returns, suspecting Rodrigues doesn’t trust him. He pleads with Rodrigues to take pity on him, saying he isn’t strong like Mokichi but weak and can’t change his nature. Just then, a few guards arrive to seize Rodrigues and throw Kichijiro a few silver coins. As the guards drag Rodrigues away, Kichijiro yells for Rodrigues to forgive him.

Analysis: Chapter 4

In Chapter 4, Rodrigues has some of his first tests of faith, a major theme of the novel. It is in this letter that readers see Rodrigues as a man trying to reconcile his ideas of Christianity and Japanese followers with firsthand experience. Many things are called into question in this chapter—Rodrigues’s ideas about missionary work, what he’s read in the Bible and of the glory of martyrs, and his romantic notions of Christ himself. These are all tested by what he experiences and observes firsthand with the peasants of Tomogi, people of whom he holds a sympathetic but naive and patronizing view. Though Rodrigues’s questioning of his faith remains hypothetical, major cracks are beginning to form.

First, Rodrigues finds himself instructing the peasants to apostatize, something he believes is inconceivable to do. When Mokichi and Ichizo are captured by the samurai, Mokichi asks Rodrigues what to do if he is asked to trample on the fumie, a public act of renunciation of the Christian faith. Rodrigues shouts to Mokichi, “Trample, Trample!” but then he immediately realizes that he spoke words that he never should have uttered. He adds that Garrpe looked at him reproachfully, and since Garrpe metaphorically represents the Church, this indicates how he’s ostensibly being looked at by the Church itself.

Rodrigues’s emotional quandary is complex in this scene. On the one hand, he is moved by pity for Mokichi and the other captives’ predicament, but he also believes he can’t expect much from these peasants. He recalls how Father Gabriel courageously resisted stomping on the fumie, but Rodrigues wonders if it is fair to demand such bravery from these unfortunate men. Rodrigues doesn’t have faith that Mokichi and the other captives have the valor, Biblical understanding, and strong faith that someone like Father Gabriel did, indicating that Rodrigues holds an arrogant view toward the peasants. If Rodrigues considered them equals, he likely wouldn’t have been so quick to lead them to commit apostasy. To him, they may not be worthy of the glorious martyrdoms he’s heard and read about.

When Mokichi and Ichizo do suffer a martyr’s death at the ocean’s edge, Rodrigues is struck once again with having to reconcile his beliefs with what he sees firsthand and his preconceptions of the people he’s trying to help. As he watches the whole painful affair unfold, he realizes how horrible the act of martyrdom can be. He recalls reading about the glorious martyrdoms of the saints when angels would announce the moment with trumpets and song. But watching Mokichi and Ichizo die, Rodrigues bemoans that this suffering is miserable and painful and that there is nothing glorious about it at all. Furthermore, God remains silent the whole time, which shakes Rodrigues to the core. This becomes Rodrigues’s first test of faith. He wonders: If God is good and just, how could he let such a horrible thing happen to innocent followers? This is something Rodrigues only has the strength to hypothesize at first. He cautiously considers that if God doesn’t truly exist, then how can people survive life and all of its cruelty? Even in this letter, which is meant to be private between him and his correspondent, he still can’t internally or publicly declare that he doesn’t believe in God yet—he hasn’t been pushed that far yet.

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