Japanese Completion in The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea The concept of completion is an element ingrained in the fabric of Japanese culture and religion. Used primarily in Zen Buddhism, completion is represented by the circle, or the enso. The enso symbolizes a number of things including strength, peace and perfection. Japanese calligraphy incorporates the enso in a variety of ways as well. If the enso is open, then it symbolizes incompletion and if it is closed, it represents completion. Others ideas of completion in Japanese culture derive from concepts such as wabi-sabi, which is finding perfection in imperfection. This facet of Buddhist philosophy focuses on finding beauty and peace in an imperfect world. An example of wabi-sabi in Japanese culture is the art of kintsugi, …show more content…
In The Sailor who Fell with Grace from the Sea, Yukio Mishima implements Japanese completion in a variety of facets, such as the recursive motif of circles throughout many aspects of the novel. Mishima also uses wabi-sabi as a key tool through creating Noboru’s idea of perfection from imperfection and through giving detailed descriptions of mundane objects. The idea of the Japanese symbol of enso is directly used in Mishima’s writing through the the pattern of circles appearing repeatedly throughout the novel. The circles all represent a point of completion or incompletion within a character’s life and is a reoccurring symbol throughout the novel with the character of Noboru. When Noboru spies on his mother and Ryuji through the peephole, he comes to a revelation. The ship’s horn “had revealed an ineluctable circle of