In both Silence and the Mission, violence breaks out among two types of European foreigners: those who would favor religious priorities over economic ones (the priests), and those who would favor economic priorities over religious ones (the European tradesmen in Silence and the Portuguese and Spanish bounty hunters in the Mission. Moreover, according to Pena, like the Jesuits in the Mission, who are alone, isolated, at odds with their church, and sometimes even each other, "Rodrigues' trials are exacerbated by his physical and cultural isolation... Culturally, he must confront being in a nation whose language and customs are mostly alien and threatening to him."

In the Mission, the story begins when a bounty-hunting Spaniard, Rodrigo, kills his younger brother Felipe over a woman they both love, but who loves only Felipe. Languishing in prison afterward, Rodrigo is certain that all is lost until he is visited in his prison cell...
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