Short Story Based on Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
IB Creative Essay: Short Story
In Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace From the Sea, the contrasting motifs of sea and earth are used to strengthen the main character's (Ryuji) own internal Dionysian v. Appollonian conflict.
The sea, with its boundless beauty, lures him toward the spirit of grand adventure.
The land offers the stability (as well as spiritual stagnation) of family life.
Ryuji's tragic death after forsaking his life of adventure on the high seas for the fatuous roles of father and husband implies that man is impotent when his quest for a Grand Cause is lost.
The following short story personifies sea and earth to portray this theme.
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Morning rays of sun sparkle magically on the sleeping Sea. The cargo ship sways gently, noiselessly, on her back. A slight wind whispers to this spectacle with the delicacy of a prayer. It tosses up little ripples that playfully catch the light as if it were a toy.
Sea awakes. She rolls a wave over the length of herself the way a woman might glide her arm gently across her dimpled cheek or belly, a touch to remind herself of her beauty, of the sensuality of womanhood. She rolls over beneath the sun, warmth beginning to tingle in her icy depths.
She thinks of her lover, the sailor Ryuji, still sleeping soundly in his rocking hammock on his ship, the Rakuyo. She rolls a few waves gently under the boat to wake him from his slumber. She thinks of his passionate dreams of her, and for the greatness she holds deep within herself as an oyster might clutch a priceless pearl within its pink folds of flesh. It is almost teasing him, she thinks, the way she keeps all of the answers to his Grand Cause always out of reach. Again and again, she tests his faith and patience with time.
* * *
Earth grumbles from crust to core. He is awoken by the playful lapping of Sea against his brittle back. She, he thinks, is a perpetual annoyance. She is fickle, changing, always creeping into him, eroding him away. She lacks substance, even purpose, really. She is not tied down to anything, she has no stability. All that she does is beat against him, constantly destroying his still, his calm. If only he had some way to voice his reproach for her.
Suddenly, Earth feels a strange presence. It is...