For Valentine’s Day – Ryuji’s View On Love 

“He wanted to talk about the sea-he might have said something like this: ‘It was the sea that made me begin thinking secretly about my love more than anything else; you know, a love worth dying for, or a love that consumes you. To a man locked in a steal ship all the time the sea is too much like a woman. Things like her, lulls, storms, or her caprice, or the beauty of her breast reflecting the setting sun, are all obvious. More than that, you’re in a ship that mounts the sea and rides her and yet constantly denied her. It’s the old saw about miles and miles of lovely water and you can’t quench your thirst. Nature surrounds a sailor with all the elements so like a woman and yet he is kept as far as a man can be from her warm, living body. That’s where the problem begins, right there-I’m sure of it.’” (41)

This small passage from the novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea presents Ryuji’s view on love. This passage is what he was planning on telling Fusako. From this passage, I learned that he likes a woman with strong emotion and yet still has some sort of attractive, sexual appearance just like the sea. At this point in the novel he is starting to fall for Fusako but his ideal woman is still the sea. The reason he might be attracted to the sea is because his mother died when he was young and he was raised by his over working, civil servant father who had to raised both him and his sister. His father and sister die leaving him alone so, “his only memories of life on shore were of poverty and sickness and death, of endless devastation; by becoming a sailor, he had detached himself from the land forever…”(40)  Surprisingly when he meets Fusako he wants to stay on land with her and leaves the sea for her. So hopefully you enjoyed reading my thoughts on Ryuji's view of love. HAPPY VALENTINE's DAY! :)