The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima - Existentialist Views on DeathCultures around the world have different beliefs regarding the final and inevitable end for all beings humans - death. In the United States and in most Westernized cultures we tend to see death as something that can be avoided through the use of medicines, breathing machines, and the like. For us, death is not a simple transition and, usually, we do not accept it as a normal part of life. Death, for Westernized people, is not celebrated, but is rather something to be afraid of, something that haunts us in the depths of our minds. However, this mentality is not widespread in all cultures: in The Sailor of Mishima, a Japanese novel steeped in traditional Eastern values, death is a very proud and honorable part of life. Its inevitability is accepted and, on many occasions, even celebrated and willingly carried around. Throughout existentialist literature, the belief is held true that death, in and of itself, is a determining factor in the meaning of life, or in this case the absence of meaning. This is what Noboru and his gang attempt to build resulting in the death of the kitten and, more importantly, Ryuji. In Sailor, our Western beliefs about death are brutally challenged. Death, in the Mariner, was something to be proud of, something to look forward to. Our first glimpse of death comes through the eyes of a child, our absurdist hero, Noboru. He, with his gang, proceeds to kill a kitten with his gang, an attempt to find meaning in what they believed was a fleeting and meaningless existence. “How are we going to do this?” he asked. After killing the kitten, the boys performed some sort of convoluted surgery on the corpse,......middle of paper......end, if Ryuji remained an "authentic person" and died as he wanted a, in a glorious death on the sea, he would not have been killed by a gang of young boys. Throughout existentialist literature, the belief is held true that death, in and of itself, is a determining factor in life's meaning, or, in this case, the absence of meaning. With Ryuji's death, the boys attempt to find meaning, but instead find revenge against Ryuji for the crime he committed against himself. Bibliography1. Heuscher, Julius E., M.D. Existential Crisis, Death, and Changing “World Designs” in Myths and Fairy Tales,” The Journal of Existentialism, 1966.2. Heuscher, J. Existentialism. Vol V., No. 20, p. 371, 1965, 3., edited by "The Meaning of Death", Mc-Graw Hill Publications, 1959, 4., Grimms' Fairy Tales., Publ., 1988.