Expectations of the Heroes in Wonderful Fool and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea In one human being's lifelong search for spiritual peace, he constantly turns to outside sources for answers to his questions. Some people quench their curiosity about a god or religion; some find relief through the use of foreign chemicals. Many people, however, turn to another person when faced with personal questions, soliciting answers from their pseudo-hero. This character is the one who, by virtue of his exotic origin, is chosen by the person to fill a void or achieve a goal. The hero is expected to meet certain qualifications based on the heroic ideal of his devotee. However, no one can successfully achieve the goals set by another person, especially when he is not personally aware of these goals. In many cases, this leads to disillusionment and bitterness in the person who determined these goals. This is the case of the main characters of the novels Wonderful Fool and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. The "heroes" of these books, Gaston Bonaparte and Ryuji Tsukazaki, are constantly expected to fulfill the fantasies of those who revere them. The failure of both Gaston and Ryuji to automatically meet these expectations ultimately leads to a sense of indignation and betrayal in their respective devotees, Tomoe and Noboru. This disappointment is fueled not by Gaston and Ryuji's failure to achieve their intended goals, but rather by the arrogance assumed by Tomoe and Noboru in expecting their intended qualifications to be met. Shusaku Endo's novel Wonderful Fool is a work full of characters who receive something contrary to their expectations. The... center of the card... leveled the charges. However, there is an important difference. Tomoe, unlike Noboru, realizes her own arrogance towards the end of Wonderful Fool and feels as if she has somehow been defeated for having "lost" to a fool: "This feeling of being beaten was for Tomoe, who prided herself on being a very knowledgeable, particularly obnoxious young woman” (Endo 185). Noboru, on the other hand, takes his egotism to the extreme, using the crimes he accused Ryuji of as sufficient reason to sentence him to death, in order to “make him a hero again” (Mishima 163). In any case, the arrogance assumed by Tomoe and Noboru is not realized in time to redeem their heroes, who in turn vanish from the lives of their devotees, never to return. Works Cited: Mishima, Yukio The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Trans. John Nathan. New York: Vintage, 1994.