Norwegian Wood is a nostalgic novel imbued by death, suicide and sexuality. Murakami describes a Japanese youth beset by doubts, embedded in the Spleen and surrounding by dreams. The protagonist and narrator, Watanabe, is remembering his past as a university student, while in a plane bound to Hamburg. All his memories appear because of the song during the landing, Norwegian Wood by The Beatles. The song brings him back twenty years earlier, during the Sixties in the middle of the Japanese student revolution.
After this preamble, we discover the high school life of Watanabe and the original context on which the whole story rely. The trio composed by him, Kizuki, his best friend and Kizuki’s girlfriend, Naoko. This represents the stability of
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He simply describes facts and the collective life doesn't seem to affect him. The only important elements are the fates of his two girlfriends, Naoko and Midori. They both turned twenty and are caught in the turmoil of their age : orientation, choices, independence, sexuality…
The title « Norwegian Wood » is meaningful to understand the story. The song by The Beatles is a driving thread throughout the novel. It follows the narrator, but is also Naoko’s favorite tube, the most important character for the protagonist. The quiet and peaceful nature is besides omnipresent in the story and perfectly match with Murakami’s poetic writing. It is even more noticeable in the movie by Trần Anh Hùng.
Murakami’s characters have all deep personalities and underlined the subtleties of the author’s work. The protagonist, Watanabe, is not really interested by the material life, by what he’s studying of by the community. Loneliness and reading are his main loopholes from a life without futur. He has also a lot of common points with Murakami, for instance his taste for american literature, Jazz and his fascination towards United-States. During his stay in the dormitory, he became friend with a cynical student, Nagasawa. This strange fellow, devoid of sensibility, makes Watanabe come out of his relative innocence by introduced him to a depraved nightlife. Everything seems to succeed him, brilliant studies, promising
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From the beginning of the novel, we feel that the different conceptions of what is to live to Watanabe and Naoko will make their love story impossible. The distance is unbounded between the two characters in their platonic relation, and take a geographical dimension early in the book. However Watanabe does not hesitate. If he is uncertain about everything in his life, he want to live and is not absorbed by Naoko’s death drives. Likewise he is not attracted by the inhumanity of Nagasawa. Every characters of the book are allegoric of Japanese and widely more generally human beeing. Here is the strength of Murakami’s work, beyond a very Japanese context firmly anchored in student turmoils of the Sixties in Tokyo, story and characters are universal. Main subjects like suicide, responsibility, depression and aspiration to live fully resonate in the reader’s mind, and the very Japanese sensibility that emerges from the work is transcended by
In Deep River Isobe, Mitsuko, and Numada are the character that we have been introduced to. I would describe Isobe as being a non-religious man, conservative, and introvert. He, also embarrassed to reveal his feelings. While his wife is in the hospital, he doesn’t show his love for his wife. The book describes him as “Like most Japanese husbands, he was ashamed to present any outward display of his love to his wife.” (Page 9) Mitsuko is a divorced woman who volunteered at the hospital Isobe wife Keiko was in. I would describe her as confident, educated and independent woman. Numada is an author of children’s books. Most of his books include animals such cats, dogs, and birds. I would describe him as a caring and an animal lover.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s play, The Love Suicides at Amijima explores the disgrace of Jihei and Koharu’s misbegotten romance, the underlying conflict of the hidden innuendos aimed at the Japanese social class and the sense of duty formed between two women from unseemmingly different backgrounds. In order to fully understand these themes, on must take into account the societal structure of Osaka, Japan in the 1720s. Within this culture, every individual was instilled the notion of familial obligation and had to adhere to the rules placed upon them by society. Chikamatsu Monzaemon does an ideal job of capturing these concepts within the play.
He also backs his theory by giving examples of "some typical lifestyles and some not so typical lifestyles", which means he shows you a complete profile of a persons life including: "Mother and fathers name and occupation, Principal child-rearer,
However, their love affair shows how much the historical aspects of the Meiji Era had a huge effect to the characters. Through the story, the difference in class, nation, and gender play a huge role. Mori Ogai’s style involving emotional and psychological observations allowed to understand the historical aspects during the Meiji
them interested and relates them to their feelings. For example the line saying “he is at this time
The settings reflect the character as a mirror. When the young man is among other people on the populated streets he is in control and appears as a very ordinary young man who is in love. But when he moves further on and the surroundings become darker, he becomes different and
• What are the characters’ emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? What do these indicate to the reader about the character?
Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 in Kyoto, a city in Japan. He lived his life in a time and place, where traditions had absolute influence on people and were very highly valued. This inspired him when he was writing his stories. For influence, he had to read Western literature. In his works, Haruki Murakami shows that he supports the idea of more freedom against traditions, but still presents the risks of choosing not to follow them.
In the novel the protagonist akira who is the Japanese exchange student is a character is sympathised a lot through his experience from family complications to social problems , as a character he continuously develops throughout the novel. This comes to display on pg. 43 when akira says " It's funny how I think about now. I
The novel Woodlawn was an inspiring story of teamwork, overcoming racial diversity, and the joining of a divided town. There are many examples of one of the main themes and that is the power that sports had on the racial conflicts from that time aera. As well as the importance of teamwork being another theme. But, mainly the change from a town with no racial equality to everyone fighting for it.
The other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. The novel is about two boys that grew up on the same neighborhood but toke different paths in their life. Two boys that grew up in the same neighborhood but toke complete different paths like author Wes joining the army and becoming an author while the other Wes takes the wrong path and ends up life sentenced. The purpose of the novel is to show that being in a bad environment doesn’t always impact how your life will turn out, it all depends on the effort that you make for that path that you want. The other Wes Moore, portrays the argument of how nature vs nurture determines someone individual success.
In the novel Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki uses his character Sensei to represent how guilt can weigh too heavily on a person. Throughout the story, Sensei's interactions with the Narrator, both verbal and nonverbal occurrences, showcase how guilt leads to other negative emotional experiences, such as loneliness and misery. Sensei's internal struggle with guilt shapes the entirety of his adult life and the unfolding of the events in the book. This paper aims to show the implications that Sensei’s guilt has upon his life, especially his relationships with others.
The use of symbolism is seen when the author discusses, “wintery seas” (line 4) which symbolizes the wanderer’s loneliness and isolation, because the sea is at a standstill much like the wanderer is stuck in his own exile. This is also expressed in the line, “a heart that is frozen” which not only symbolizes the wanderer’s isolation but also his inability to find a place that feels like home. Because of this the wanderer then comes to the conclusion that he feels most alone when he reflects over his life, but manages to outweigh that with his dreams of one day finding a home. When people long for the things they can no longer have it results in them falling into a deep depression, just like how the wanderer longs for a life he can no longer have which has resulted in his
In the essentially dual religious system in Japan, ideologies and traditions play a heavy role in the everyday life of the Japanese people. Shintoism and Buddhism intertwine and complement themselves in Japanese culture, despite Buddhism coming in from mainland Asia. A particularly powerful idea from Buddhism is mono no aware, the realization and acknowledgment of the impermanence and its place in the world. This idea that nothing stays the same forever manifests itself heavily in Japanese literature, whether in personal writings or fictional works. Despite spanning hundreds of years, each work was shaped by and include manifestations of mono no aware. I intend to underline and pinpoint instances that mono no aware is influencing these works, and discuss similarities and differences between them. In this paper, I have three works that I will explore, each one corresponding to a different time period before the pre-industrial revolution; The Diary of Lady Murasaki comes from the classical period, Essays in Idleness from the medieval, and the immensely popular play Chushingura from the pre-modern era.
During the novel “Purple Hibiscus”, we witness the transformation of Kambili Achike from a silenced, repressed and wary girl into a more confident, mature and happy young woman. This change is brought upon by significant characters in the story, who help show Kambili how joyous the world can be and how she also has a place within this joyous world. And through this Kambili finds a way to slowly crack through her father’s hold over her and come into her own.