Readings of Endo's Silence usually focus on the pivotal conversations Ferreira and Inoue have with Rodrigues. Too tight a focus, however, diminishes the challenge the novel poses to modern readers; Silence becomes mere personal tragedy, selling short the novel's complex involvement in Buddhist–Christian dialogue. The character called “the interpreter” broadens that challenge. His three major conversations with Rodrigues present the groundwork and summation for a challenge more perennial and more specifically rooted in Endo's milieu than would appear from just those events surrounding the fumie scene.
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