Maria Grant Sharpe
CMLIT 004U
Dr. Tachibana
May 2, 2013
Japanese Society in Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Murakami, one of the most critically acclaimed and widely read authors in Japan today, is labeled by many as a postmodernist. His short story “The Elephant Vanishes” and fictional novel “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” are prime examples of why this label has been placed on Murakami’s work. Both stories revolve around a central theme that since World War II the Japanese have lost a clear sense of self. Murakami reveals this central theme by overlaying a number of supporting themes, including the split between reality and imagination, and the overbearing effect of the past on the present. The central theme is furthered through vivid symbolism, the mundane activities of everyday life, and frequent references to western culture. Both stories beg the question: Do we have our own free will to act individually in this life, or are our actions predetermined by the mass of history that comes before us? Murakamiʼs Wind-Up Bird Chronicle probes contemporary Japanese life through the consciousness of a seemingly ordinary, slyly humorous, and increasingly likable narrator, Toru Okada, affectionately called “Mr. Wind-Up Bird.” His search for his wife Kumiko, who has left him, seems also a search for himself. Okada is 30, out of work, absent-minded and yet somehow hyper-vigilant at the same time. His character goes against all the norms for men in Japanese society, his actions and emotional sensitivity often coming across as feminine. Okada's life seems utterly unremarkable—his everyday activities are very mundane - except for the fact that Okada keeps stumbling into the sharp edges of unseen obstacles, a series of omens, paradoxes and enigmas that cast ominous shadows on otherwise ordinary scenes. He is haunted by Japanese history, paralyzed by his own inertia and ennui, and baffled by his relationships with women. Throughout the novel it is never apparent what is reality and what is Okada’s imagination. The interpenetration of worlds is one of the most intriguing literary devises in novel. The intermixing of dream world and real life occurs often. Creta Kano consciously enters Toruʼs dreams and knows that she has. May Kasahara, in a dream, hears Toruʼs call from the bottom of the well at the same time he has called out to her. And Kumiko herself has a recurring dream of Toruʼs searching for her, as he has done in real life. The vast world of the unconscious seeps into dreams, but for Murakamiʼs characters, ones real life also affects another’s dreams. This uncertainty furthers the theme by emphasizing the confusion of the Japanese people. The beguiling sense of mystery suffuses "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and draws irresistibly and ever deeper into the phantasmagoria of constant bewilderment into which Okada tumbles. Although the novel is set in contemporary Japan, Okada's life is studded with emblems of Western art, technology and consumables. He likes to cook spaghetti while listening to Rossini. He drinks Cutty Sark. He is proud of his signed copy of Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" and the fact that he knows the names of all the brothers Karamazov. His points of reference range from Allen Ginsberg to "Gulliver's Travels," and he knows enough about American pop music to crack that Herb Alpert's "The Sands of Malta" is "an authentic stinker of a song." The references to imported cultural artifacts are so frequent--and the reflections of traditional Japanese culture so few--that we begin to see Okada's life as a quest to find some glimmer of authenticity in a world that has become foreign. Along the way, Okada discovers even more gruesome secrets about the troubled would around him, starting with such mundane matters as madness and marital infidelity. But soon escalating into stomach- turning descriptions of Japanese soldiers being skinned alive, animals being mowed down by machine guns, as well as molestation, murder, rape and suicide. Subtle connections are made by Murakamiʼs layering of images. The wind-up bird’s call comes to symbolize evil within a society rampant with political corruption. The lost cat represents the disappearance of Japanese tradition. Malta’s red vinyl hat symbolizes truth among a society filled with lies. Okada’s facial mark represents the change he experiences himself while in the well. The baseball bat symbolizing the horrible war crimes the Japanese committed, the well representing the dark abyss the Japanese people must find the light in. By connecting one incident with another the author is connecting present with the past. This connection furthers the theme that the Japanese people are haunted by the past and must face those horrors, as Okada does, in order to find their sense of self. In Book 3, Chapter 27, Toru briefly sums up all the questions that have been haunting him and the reader: Why do national histories and individual fates seem to intertwine, and why is the mystery of this equation bearing so much weight on his personal life? The answer, and arguably the heart of the novel, is that no division is possible between national histories and individual fates. The two are inextricably and irrevocably linked. The actions of a nation have a long-lasting effect on the emotions of the individual, and any attempt to forget or distort this truth always comes with a damnably high price. Toru has to undergo unimaginable pain to confront the demons and ghouls of the past, and the same fate awaits the nation that has opportunely consigned its less than glorious past to oblivion. The short story “The Elephant Vanishes” also reflects the theme of confusion among the Japanese people. As in “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle”, Murikami draws on the divide between reality and imagination as well as underlying symbols to further the theme that drives the short story. The narrator of the story is again a young, single, middle-aged man living in a suburb in Tokyo. He lives a quite life as a employee at a major manufacturing company of electrical appliances. When the Elephant and his keeper, that the suburb maintained ownership of, go missing the narrator’s life suddenly changes and he becomes obsessed with their whereabouts. Again, as in “The Wind –Up Bird Chronicle” the line between reality and fiction is blurred. The narrator believes that given the unbelievable circumstances of the disappearance, the elephant has simply vanished into thin air. While observing the elephant and its keeper the night before they vanished, the narrator witnesses the elephant shrink and become the same size as its keeper. It is common sense that an elephant cannot vanish or shrink in size, yet there seems to be no other explanation for the disappearance. The confusion both the reader and the narrator experience is indicative of the confusion in Japanese society, furthering the central theme of the story. Within the short story, there are many symbols that reinforce Murakami’s message. The elephant itself symbolizes the traditions and customs of post World War II Japan. Like the old traditions, the elephant has lost its place in society and becomes a relic of the past. Soon it becomes so remote that one day it just disappears, leaving everyone bewildered as to where it went. This is very indicative of the bewilderment the Japanese felt after the war. Society completely changed and many of the traditions of the past vanished. Describing the empty cage the narrator explains, “Without the elephant something about the place seemed wrong. It looked bigger than it needed to be, blank and empty like some huge, dehydrated beats from with the innards had been plucked”. The empty cage symbolizes the emptiness of Japan since the war ended and the past was forgotten. The chain that the elephant was confined by is symbolic of the weight the Japanese people are held by refusing to face the ghosts of the past. At the end of the story the narrator says: “ nothing seemed to matter anymore, I felt like this a lot after my experience with the vanishing elephant. I would begin to think I wanted to do something, but then I would become incapable of distinguishing between the probable results of doing it and not doing it. I often get the feeling the things around me have lost their proper balance”. This goes against everything the narrator strives for in his “pragmatic” life. He has found that now that the elephant is gone his life lacks balance and meaning. By forgetting the past and the choices of the Japanese government, the Japanese society lacks balance and meaning. This is the central theme Murikami coveys through “The Elephant Vanishes”. Through the seemingly ordinary lives of modern Japanese men Murikami delves into the deeper subject of modern Japanese society in “The Elephant Vanishes” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”. Both stories feature a central theme of disconnect in modern Japan. Amid the excitement of the modern age, the Japanese people have chosen to forgo facing the horrors of the past and in the process have lost their identity and sense of self as a nation. The central theme is reinforced by other subordinate themes as well strong symbolism and relatable characters. While the message of the stories is controversial, it is well defined and ingeniously structured.
Works Cited

Murakami, Haruki, and Jay Rubin. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Print.

Goossen, Theodore William. "The Elephant Vanishes." The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. 182-86. Print.

Giles, Jeff (11/17/1997). "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle". Newsweek (0028- 9604), 130 (20), p. 87.

Hower, E. (1993, Mar 28). Ordinary landscapes, extraordinary events. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/418032569?accountid=13158