Within the novel, Mishima uses the gang to portray his belief in the futility of human life and society. He uses the gang to show how the process of dehumanization works and affects society. All six members of the gang are alienated from the society in which they live. The gang believes emotions impede them from living authentically in a corrupt and controlling society, so the chief conditions them to feel numb through overstimulation, such as by viewing pornography and—most graphically—killing and dissecting a cat. The chief believes that suppression of one's excitement or disgust in such situations will erode emotions and allow the gang to live “real” are authentic lives outside of the confines and control of adults and conventional society. Another way that Mishima shows the alienation of the gang is by having the chief assign them numbers in place of their given names, thereby erasing identity given to them by their parents. Even the main character, Noboru, is known in the gang as number three. Despite Noboru's efforts to achieve an emotionless state, however, he maintains a belief that meaning might be found in the sea. His attempt to find meaning is evident in his love for ships and his initial reverence and respect for Ryuji Tsukazaki, a merchant sailor whose commitment to sea is illustrated when Tsukazaki turns toward the sound of a ship's horn in the bedroom scene early in the novel (12). Eventually, however, even Tsukazaki fails to live up to Noboru's expectations, and Noboru begins keeping a tally of the sail crimes Tsukazaki commits as the sailor falls in love with Noboru's mother, moves in, and gets engaged to be married. Noboru's alienation and disappointment in Tsukazaki and his mother's appropriation of western fashion aligns with Mishima's own feelings of dehumanization and marginalization due to his assumed homosexuality and conflicting feelings about Japanese society in a post-war world.