THE SEARCH FOR THE J UNGIAN STRANGER

IN THE NOVELS OF HARUKI MURAKAMI:

A WILD SHEEP CHASE,
HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD,
AND THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE

by

J ASON B. BARONE




Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the degree of Master of Arts

Department of English
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

May 2008

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES



We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of


_____________________________________________________


candidate for the ______________________degree *.




(signed)_______________________________________________
(chair of the committee)


________________________________________________


________________________________________________


________________________________________________


________________________________________________


________________________________________________



(date) _______________________



*We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any
proprietary material contained therein.
Jason B. Barone
Master of Arts
William Marling
Mary Grimm
Margaret Fitzgerald
March 20, 2008
1

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Abstract ................................................................................................................................2
Introduction ..........................................................................................................................4
Chapter One: A Wild Sheep Chase .....................................................................................14
Chapter Two: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ..................................39
Chapter Three: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle ....................................................................66
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................93
Works Cited .......................................................................................................................97

2

The Search for the J ungian Stranger in the Novels of Haruki Murakami:
A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,
and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Abstract
by
J ASON B. BARONE


Haruki Murakamis novels are characterized by a struggle between the conscious
and unconscious regions of the mind, with his protagonists maneuvering between the two
worlds and seeking a way to bridge the gap. Haunted by memories, dreams, and visions,
they must determine the correct route to understanding their hidden, unknown selves.
The protagonists move in a gradual progression from the physical, conscious world
(marked by a perplexing mystery) to that of the unconscious (the source of their sense of
loss and desire)and then back again, to the real world. The novels end with a
temporary sense of reconciliation between these realms.
The J ungian stranger is a nebulous figure that resides within the subconscious
mind of the Murakami protagonist. Based on J ungs observation that within each one of
us there is another whom we do not know (Psychological Reflections 67), the stranger
draws the protagonist more deeply into the novels mystery so that he can gain the
knowledge and ability he needs to overcome his real-life problems. Whether the stranger
initiates the quest via the perplexing identity of an odd-looking sheep, the unexpected gift
of an apparent unicorn skull, or the futile search for a missing cat, the seemingly
3

innocuous and ordinary are often Murakamis portal into something deeper, darker, and
more dangerousyet potentially transcendental.
This paper analyzes the Murakami protagonists psychological journey towards
the J ungian stranger in the novels A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He begins as a detached, bemused
observer, unable to initiate any passionate involvement with his world. His attitude
changes as various characters force or lure him towards a mysterious goal, one that is
somehow linked to his vague sense of disquiet. His dilemma is caused by the rift
between his conscious and subconscious selves; the only way to resolve his situation is to
link them together. This J ungian process is accomplished as the protagonist, guided by
other characters, moves through four psychological stages (awareness, encouragement,
identification, and fulfillment) in which he sheds his passivity, confronts the J ungian
stranger, and acquires self-knowledge.

4

INTRODUCTION


The subconscious is very important to me as a writer. I don't read much Jung, but
what he writes has some similarity with my writing. To me, the subconscious is
terra incognita. I don't want to analyze it, but Jung and those people,
psychiatrists, are always analyzing dreams and the significance of everything. I
don't want to do that. I just take it as a whole. Maybe that's kind of weird, but
I'm feeling like I can do the right thing with that weirdness. Sometimes it's very
dangerous to handle that. (Murakami, qtd. in Miller)

Based on these comments, Haruki Murakami dislikes analysis of his work, which
is one of the reasons for his well-known reclusiveness and the scarcity of his interviews.
Yet his mention of J ung is telling, for it acknowledges the indirect influence that J ungs
research has had on his writing.
Murakamis novels are characterized by a struggle between the conscious and
unconscious regions of the mind, with his protagonists maneuvering between the two
worlds and seeking a way to bridge the gap. Haunted by memories, dreams, and visions,
they must determine the correct route to understanding their hidden, unknown selves.
The protagonists move in a gradual progression from the physical, conscious world
(marked by a perplexing mystery) to that of the unconscious (the source of their sense of
loss and desire)and then back again, to the real world. The novels end with a
temporary sense of reconciliation between these realms; such hope is always uncertain
but increases as the novels progress. Matthew Strecher, a Murakami scholar, explains
that Murakami presents the mind as as a uniformly coded division between the world of
the light and that of the dark, the latter corresponding to the unconscious realm, which is
depicted as dark, cold, and lifeless, [sometimes] only symbolized, other times real
(Magical Realism 270).
5

In the subconscious lie the Murakami protagonists fears, doubts, and desires.
The novels A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle begin with the protagonist as a detached, bemused observer,
unable to initiate any passionate involvement with his world. His mood begins to change,
however, as a vague, puzzled awareness of his deficiencies casts a shadow over his
tranquility. This feeling coincides with the emergence of a real problem. An odd
assortment of characters enters his life to force or lure him towards a mysterious goal,
one that is somehow linked to his emerging disquiet. Without these peripheral characters
(with women taking on increasingly stronger, more important roles as the novels
progress), he can neither break into his subconscious nor take action in the physical world
to bring about the necessary change. His dilemma is caused by the rift between these
opposing sides of reality, and in order to make his Self complete, he must link them. As
one critic observes, the protagonist is much like a detective, but the crime has somehow
happened within himself (Thompson, Nobel Prize Winner in Waiting?).
J ung described the protagonists process of unifying his Self as individuation,
but before it can be explored more fully, we must first examine, in J ungian terms, what
the Self is. As J ungian analyst Anthony Stevens explains, J ung and his colleagues
discovered that the hallucinations and traumatic memories they witnessed in their patients
contained motifs and images that also occurred in myths, religions, and fairy tales from
all over the world (75). The significance of these universal motifs, Stevens writes, is
comparable to that of gravity for Newtonian physics, relativity for Einsteinian physics, or
natural selection for Darwinian biology (ibid.). Known as the J ungian archetypes, of
which the Self is one of the most prominent, they originate from the unknown,
6

subconscious region of the mind and provide the hidden meaning behind dreams. The
Self archetype extends far beyond the unconscious, however. As J ung describes, it is
the totality of the psyche ... not only the centre, but also the whole circumference which
embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego
is the centre of consciousness (qtd. in Colman 157). J ung claimed that this totality is
far more comprehensive than Freuds ego (Psychological Types 33). In simpler terms,
the Self comprises both what we normally perceive as the real, physical world and that of
visions, memories, and dreams. The Murakami protagonist seeks to reconcile these two
realms by seeking out what I will refer to as the J ungian stranger.
The J ungian stranger is an entity who occupies the centre depicted in J ungs
description. The basis for this hidden and shadowy figure is the following excerpt from
Psychological Reflections:
Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in
dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from how we see ourselves. When,
therefore, we find ourselves in a difficult situation, to which there is no solution,
he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude, the very attitude
that led us into the difficult situation. (Psychological Reflections 67)

As each Murakami novel begins, the J ungian stranger is little more than a hazy,
unsettling notion in the protagonists mind. However, as a series of unusual events
unfolds around him and various characters appear bearing clues and demands, he realizes
that the stranger holds the key to understanding. His goal is to locate and identify his
Selfs J ungian stranger, who is responsible for the sudden resurgence of old memories,
the protagonists increasingly upsetting day-to-day experiences, and the vague feeling
that something vital is missing. Another critic explains, Some [Murakami protagonists]
are shallow, with little interior life; others have a deep need for meaning and self-
7

fulfillment. Mostly, they are simply bewildered by their sense of disconnection and loss
(Loughman 20). Their void can be filledat least temporarilyby their successful
identification of the J ungian stranger, whose nebulous appearance would be what J ung
referred to as a big dream, an event of transformative power that cannot be attributed
to daily life and one that contains significant communication from the unconscious
through symbolical and archetypal imagery (Spurgeon 72).
Murakami metaphorically alludes to the J ungian stranger, as indicated in the
following interview excerpt:
Ive been married for 30 years. Sometimes I wonder what would it be like if I had
been single . . . If and if and if. I could go along that passage and find new
strange rooms. [] Thats the beginning of the story. We have rooms in
ourselves. Most of them we have not visited yet. Forgotten rooms. From time to
time we can find the passage. We find strange thingsold phonographs, pictures,
booksthey belong to us, but it is the first time we have found them. (Murakami,
qtd. in Thompson)

Although the subconscious rooms in ourselves are not an entity, they correspond to the
unknown another whom J ung describes. The stranger waits inside the rooms and, to
make his presence known, tosses strange things through the passage towards the
protagonists conscious mind. Strecher contributes the term core identity to the
growing list of metaphors for this figure; all of them occupy the deepest levels of
consciousness. The attainment of the Murakami protagonists core identity, he explains,
is
to suggest a metaphysical process by which that inner mind can be accessed,
and this forms one of the most recognizable trademarks in Murakami literature.
[In Murakami,] a realistic narrative setting is created, then disrupted, sometimes
mildly, sometimes violently, by the bizarre or the magical. (Magical Realism
267)

8

The J ungian stranger reawakens the protagonists conscious desires and propels him on
an odyssey both physical and psychological. Strecher adds that the transformation of the
protagonists physical environment into something unrecognizable serves as Murakamis
means to show his readers two worldsone conscious, the other unconsciousand
permit seamless crossover between them by characters who have become only memories,
and by memories that reemerge from the mind to become new characters again
(Magical Realism 268). In order to achieve a sense of order and balance in his life, the
protagonist must not only find their hidden connection, but he must also travel down that
path into his core identitythe centre of the totality of his being as well as the home of
the J ungian strangerand make the elusive contents he discovers there more real.
J ung calls this procedure individuation, defining it as embrac[ing] our
innermost, last and incomparable uniqueness and becoming ones own self (qtd. in
Colman 156). The path to individuation, which J ung also calls coming to selfhood or
self-realization (ibid.), becomes accessible to the Murakami protagonist via both
regular dreams and his waking imagination. As he progresses along that path, it becomes
impossible for both him and the reader to tell the difference between the two. J ust as
individuation is possible in J ung, so it is in Murakami. Guided by other characters, the
protagonist realizes that, as J ung discovered, he need no longer be a passive observer of
his unconscious but that he could actively step into fantasy (Conger 76). In his
encounter with the J ungian stranger, the protagonist uses his new-found ability to hold
onto [this fantastic] figure and demand something through active imagination (ibid.).
The J ungian stranger assumes various guisesthe ghost of an old, long-lost friend, a
mysterious and faceless woman in a dark hotel room, and even the protagonists own
9

alternate selfbut in all cases the something that the protagonist demands is self-
knowledge. While the circumstances and repercussions of the understanding he receives
are vastly different, his psychological quest always achieves at least limited success.
Such accomplishment raises the question of whether Murakami is alluding to
possible spiritual implications as well. In other words, does the protagonists creation of
a clear pathway between his subconscious and conscious worlds bring him closer to the
divine Other? The answer is an unqualified no. Murakami has claimed to have almost
no concern about religious matters, and his protagonist must make extreme sacrifices in
exchange for only a temporary elevated level of awareness (Murakami, qtd. in Gabriel
156). Ultimately, the most the protagonist can hope for is to return his life to normal. In
Murakami, however, the word normal does not have the usual connotation. As one
critic writes, his protagonists embody the intuition, ubiquitous in late modernity, that the
inexplicable has become commonplace: it is normal that abnormal things occur
(Cassegard 82). In a milieu in which both the conscious and unconscious components of
the Self are portrayed with the trappings of our physical reality, the border between the
two realms is nonexistent.
The price of the protagonists act of individuation, which another psychologist
describes as a drive toward becoming more authentic, more wholly oneself (Moody
272), lessens over the course of the three novels that this paper will analyzebut it is
never eradicated. In A Wild Sheep Chase, thedarkest of the three, the protagonist
achieves his two-fold objective of destroying the evil sheep and breaking through the
barrier of his subconscious in order to be reunited with his dead friend. Yet in doing so
he becomes utterly desolate and alone. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the
10

World, the results are mixed. The split-minded narrator discovers that as his conscious
and subconscious worlds are about to collide, he can maintain his identity and memories
only by leaving behind his physical environment and everyone he has ever known. In
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, his self-realization is mostly positive. In this novel, the
most complex and critically acclaimed of the three, the protagonist establishes a firm link
to his subconscious, thus defeating his arch-enemy and recovering his missing wife.
However, in hopeful resignation, he must wait to see if her ravaged mind will ever return
to normal.
No matter what level of success the protagonist achieves, however, there are
others beyond the borders of his Self who have roles to play. These figures exist in both
the past and the present, both as human and non-human, and with both benevolent and
evil intentions. Those of the malevolent sort signify an even greater, more foreboding
presence that looms in the murky background. Despite the protagonists final connection
with the J ungian stranger, he may never fully escape the darkness concealed beneath
J apanese society. Writes Matsuoka:
Murakami has revealed the underground world of modern J apan in which sinister
forces are at work: the powerful underground kingdom ruled by the mysterious
sheep, the dark and dangerous underground world just beneath Tokyo inhabited
by malicious creature INKlings, and the wells connecting Setagaya, Tokyo in the
1980s to the Manchuria-Mongolia border in the 1930s. (Matsuoka 308)

Such sinister forces are perceivable, but they are not easily categorized or vanquished.
The protagonists core identitywherein dwells the J ungian strangerholds the key to
their discovery.
Other characters, especially women, make up the protagonists key relationships.
They help him accomplish his physical and psychological objectives, the latter of which
11

are accomplished in four major phases that I have named awareness, encouragement,
identification, and fulfillment. These phases of his journey to individuation, as J ung
would describe it, are part of a much larger framework, universally present in all living
creatures, in which his Self is part of a graduated kind of psychological process (J ung,
Psychological Types 33). Within each individual, likewise, there is a unique
psychological process of discovering and unifying ones Self. That uniqueness is
revealed via the protagonists ability to engage with other characters along the way.
The nature of his relationships as he moves through the phases of his
psychological process are, in turn, ranked in four different categories, from the least
significant to the most critical: the basic, the personal, the profound, and the
subconscious. Characters in the basic relationship category are primarily used to carry
the narrative forward, for the protagonist reveals very little of his inner motivations.
Those in the personal category achieve a greater intimacy with the protagonist that may
or may not be benevolent; to a limited extent they understand his desires and doubts.
However, the protagonists profound relationships are the deepest humanly possible,
whether by his design or by utter chance. In these cases, the protagonist achieves a
special psychological bond with these characters, even though he may never realize how
deeply it goes. Finally, his subconscious relationships signify his interaction with the
J ungian stranger, taking him into another reality. The first three relationship types
collectively awaken and prepare his mind for this final encounter; they serve as stepping
stones or waypoints towards his unknown Self. The protagonists passage into his
core identity, therefore, can only be achieved via interaction with people in the physical,
conscious world. This process can be visually demonstrated in the model below:
12

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13

psychological meaning at all. A deep, literal analysis of the terra incognita of the
subconscious would miss his overall significance. While I would encourage a J ungian
critic to explore Murakamis dream imagery and file it away into various archetypal
categories, such is not the ultimate goal of this paper. It is most likely the case that
J ungian influences seep into Murakamis fiction from, for lack of a better word, his own
subconscious. Asked about his approach to writing, he states:
Usually I have just begun something whose story I don't know how to make
progress with. So I just write one chapter, then the second chapter, and just keep
going. I don't know what is going to happen; it just seems to come out
automatically. [] One of my great pleasures in writing is to find out what
happens next. Without that pleasure, it doesn't mean anything. (Murakami, qtd.
in Gregory, et.al.)

With this, Murakami tacitly acknowledges that his J ungian stranger directs much of his
narratives. I don't trust anything New Ageor reincarnation, dreams, Tarot,
horoscopes, he says. I don't trust anything like that at all (Murakami, qtd. in Miller).
Perhaps there will be a basis for such endeavors only after Murakami has passed on and
his lifes work is complete. Until that time, the authors own core identity and
psychological implications, just like that of his protagonists, will remain terra incognita.
14

Chapter One

Stepping into the Great Unknown: A Wild Sheep Chase (Hitsuji o meguru bouken)

With A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami introduces a young male protagonist who is
a product of the vigorous 1960s, when the air was alive, even as everything seemed
poised on the verge of collapse, waiting for a push (5). The first-person narrator recalls
how he and his fellow university students demonstrated against the authorities by putting
up blockades, shutting down the campus, and fighting with the policeall as part of the
international antiwar movement that never fully coalesced. It is now 1978, a period of
boredom and disillusionment due the irrevocability of the curtain [that] was creaking
down on the shambles of the sixties (5). The narrator is the embodiment of this
sentiment, for he is locked so deeply behind a veneer of coolness and detachment that he
has squandered some important personal relationships. As the quintessential model of
the hard-boiled detective, masking remarkable characteristics behind a faade of
simplicity, it is rare for him to indicate to others the extent of his feelings (Strecher,
Beyond 358). However, his narration reveals his conflict, for he struggles to
communicate and overcome his aloofness. Most of the time he seems at ease with his
self-designation as an authority on troublemaking (145), but there is an anxious,
frustrated quality concealed somewhere beneath that only the reader can identify.
Known only as boku (informal masculine J apanese for I or me), the
protagonist seeks to understand the nature of his mind and the meaning of various scraps
of memory that emerge years laterand the reason that, ever since his college days, it
seemed that the world kept moving on [but] I alone was at a standstill (8). His old
memories suggest a hidden stranger buried somewhere within his subconscious, but
15

because of his emotional state, he lacks the ability to bridge that hidden gap and unify his
J ungian Self. While none of his recollections are directly related to the overall narrative,
they contain a wistfulness and melancholy that belie his cool, bored exterior. As one
critic writes, A persistent, low-level sadness runs throughout the novel, most of it linked
to the atomization of old ideals by an antiseptic modern order (Lin, Break on
Through). Early in the novel boku drifts about in a state of semi-consciousness, where
nothing changed from day to day, not one thing (24). He is only dimly aware of his
subconscious Self, which he must identify in order to attain any significance. In
congruence with his state of mind, the narrative flounders about with calculated yet
fretful uncertainty until a third of the way through, when boku is forced out of his isolated
world and embarks upon a physical quest. At this point, a change occurs in his demeanor,
and he begins to progress along a more focused and linear path. The narrative moves
from the real to the imagined, or more accurately between two different states or
conditions of realityreality as perceived by the senses and reality as perceived through
the mind.
Bokus progress throughout his journey towards his J ungian stranger will be
examined in this chapter via the four phases of his psychological process, as mentioned in
the introduction. This process remains intact throughout the three novels, and the
protagonist attains a rising level of success along the course of one novel to the next.
While Sheeps protagonist achieves his desired confrontation with the J ungian stranger,
his final outlook is bleak. The individuation of his Self is only temporary, and it leaves
him empty. In the end, his abandonment by others drives him back behind his psycho-
16

social barriers. Despite his unfortunate fate, he experiences a psychological awakening,
which consists of the following stages:
(1) Awareness, in which boku first senses the influence of the subconscious on the
physical realm via the resurgence of old, scattered memories;
(2) Encouragement, in which he realizes that the beautiful ears of his otherwise
ordinary-looking girlfriend are conduits to a hidden world, giving her psychic
powers;
(3) Identification, in which he prepares for his own passage to his subconscious by
engaging in a purification of himself and the house where his friend had
committed suicide; and finally
(4) Fulfillment, in which boku confronts the J ungian strangerin the form of his
friends ghostand completes his friends mission.
Helping him through each stage of his quest is an assortment of characters who have
varying degrees of influence on his barricaded mind. Before I examine both the steps of
his journey and the nature of his relationships in detail, a brief plot synopsis is in order.
As a nameless 29-year-old Tokyo advertising executive, boku leads a lonely and
unremarkable life. He is recently divorced, and his relationship with his business partner
is floundering. He has become haunted by odd, random memories stemming from his
more carefree and youthful days, and they fill him with a sense of loss and regret. One
day he uses an innocuous photograph of a meadow full of sheep for an insurance
companys PR bulletin. Before long the image draws the attention of the black-suited
secretary (123) of a mysterious and powerful right-wing figure known only as the Boss
(69). The Boss, the secretary explains, is dying from a strange cyst in his brain, and he
17

needs boku to locate an odd-looking sheep featured in the photo. Although boku refuses
the secretarys demands to reveal the source of the image, he confides to the reader that it
had been sent to him as a postcard by his friend the Rat, who disappeared a few years ago.
The secretary threatens that if boku does not find the sheep within a month, dire
consequences will fall upon him and his company.
Boku acquiesces to the order. He embarks on a journey to the northern island of
Hokkaido, where he presumes the sheep is located. He is accompanied by his unnamed
girlfriend, an ear model who uses her unblocked (45) ears as a passageway to her
subconscious.
1
She psychically guides him to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo, where they
stay for a few days to make inquiries about the precise mountainous location where the
photo was taken. There they meet the Sheep Professor, an eccentric old man who
explains that the sheep is a powerful force of evil, for it had briefly possessed his body
when he was a young soldier in the war and left him forever traumatized. The Sheep
Professor points them in the direction of a tiny remote mountain village called J unitaki-
cho, where he had built a house long ago. Boku realizes that it is this house where the
Rat has been living, yet when he and his girlfriend reach it, they find it abandoned but
well-stocked for the coming winter. His girlfriend, who upon reaching J unitaki-cho lost
her psychic abilities, tells boku to take a nap while she cooks dinner. He awakens hours
later to find that she has vanished.
There, isolated from the rest of the world, boku senses that something significant
is about to happen. He is visited by the Sheep Man, who wears a full-body sheep
costume. The Sheep Man seems to know the location of the sheep and the Rat but

1
The lack of proper names in A Wild Sheep Chase plays a large factor in bokus disconnection from both
his conscious and subconscious realities. However, in the novels sequel, Dance Dance Dance, his
girlfriends name is revealed as Kiki, which refers to listening and hearing.
18

refuses to answer bokus questions. The protagonist begins to suspect that this creature is
his friend in disguise. Feeling that the Rat is reaching out to him from the subconscious
world, boku cleans the house from top to bottom in preparation for their meeting. The
Rat comes in the darkness of night and tells boku that he had been possessed by the
malevolent sheep and committed suicide in an effort to destroy it. This task has one
remaining step to complete, which he asks boku to fulfill. The house is rigged to explode
so as to obliterate the evil sheep for good; he needs boku to set it off. The next morning,
the protagonist follows his friends instructions and the house, its lingering force of evil,
and the black-suited secretary are destroyed. Boku succeeds in his assignment, but upon
his return to Tokyo, he feels more alone than ever. The novel ends as he cries upon an
empty beach.
To understand the nature of bokus ultimate loss, despite the achievement of his
goal, it is important to analyze his relationships with other characters. As explained in
the introduction, I have categorized these relationships into four types: the basic, the
personal, the profound, and the subconscious. As the novel progresses, bokus
relationships in the first three categories enable him to accomplish his final confrontation
within his core identity. In turn, his subconscious encounter coincides with the ultimate
phase of his psychological process, fulfillment. Until he reaches that point, however, his
most important relationship is his girlfriend, and his selfish neglect of her brings about
his final sense of desolation. Because women always hold the most crucial significance
in Murakami, she appears in boldface in the table below. The importance of female
characters (as well as their number) increases along the three novels.

19

Relationship
Type
Meaning Characters
The Basic Boku is interested only in gaining or
sharing information, so he doesnt
venture into personal observations and
revelations
The Rats ex-girlfriend
the black-suited secretary
the Sheep Professor
The Personal Boku lowers his guard a bit to offer
some insight into his feelings, yet his
inability or unwillingness to reveal
more brings about awkwardness
the Chinese bar owner J
bokus business partner
bokus ex-wife
owner of the Dolphin
Hotel
The Profound Boku demonstrates sincere interest in
the conversation and delves into
philosophical and personal matters
the limousine chauffeur
bokus girlfriend
The Subconscious Boku establishes a connection to the
blocked regions of his mind and
confronts the hidden stranger lurking
within
the Sheep Man
the Rat

The rest of this chapter will explore in detail bokus key relationships in Sheep as he
moves through the four phases of his psychological awakening.
The four types of relationships represent different levels of bokus Self, from the
outermost periphery of his consciousness (the basic) and inward to the very core of his
identity, where the J ungian stranger resides. Unlike the four phases of his psychological
process, his relationships do not occur in strict chronological or narrative order; however,
his basic, personal, and profound relationships are always consummated before those of
the subconscious sort. Strecher uses Murakamis own term black box, first used in
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, as another way to describe the core
identity: the fact remains that most of Murakami's literature is concerned with opening
20

up that impregnable box of memories and experiences, and holding it up to the light for
analysis (Magical Realism 271).
In this novel, bokus movement towards his subconscious is linear, so his
connection to his core identity grows stronger as the narrative moves along. Although
this is not different from the protagonists journeys in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, bokus case is unique in that he is unable to anticipate who
awaits him in his subconscious until he is on the verge of entering. This makes Sheeps
plot structure easily the least complex of the three novels. The advancement from one
phase to the next is marked by certain events and characters that create sharp contrasts
against bokus otherwise unremarkable and isolated life. Because Sheep is Murakamis
first major novel, the author is perhaps self-consciously careful to delineate the steps of
bokus progress in such fashion that the reader cannot help but notice. The protagonists
narrative style, which is directed at the reader as if confiding to a close friend, is much
more revelatory than his dialogue with actual characters.
Boku begins his psychological process in the awareness phase, which is initiated
from beyond his conscious control. Shimmers of the J ungian stranger first come to him
via specific memories: an emotionally-troubled girl he slept with in college who recently
died in a terrible accident, a strange and disturbing exhibit at the local aquarium when he
was a boy, and a neighborhood bar where he and the Rat used to have relaxed, idle
conversations with J , the Chinese owner. As he struggles to comprehend their
significance, his interpersonal barriers, marked by his passive and aloof stance, are
stronger than ever. They create his strained and cynical personal-level relationships,
namely his ex-wife, his partner, and J .
21

His languid movement through the early chapters is marked by his mildly
bemused and slightly bored state of mind that brings his long-suffering wife to the end of
her patience. Similarly, his disillusioned business partner, who tries to lure boku back to
their work with wistful references to their happier days, has become an alcoholic. Boku
is affected by both of their pleas for communication and understanding, even to the point
of guilt and regret, but his lack of open empathy keeps them at arms length. After she
leaves him, his ex-wife becomes little more than a vacant chair in the kitchen: this was
hardly what you could call a tragedy (26). When she first threatens him with divorce, he
does not fight to keep their marriage intact:
Either way is fine with you, then? she asked, releasing her words slowly.
No, either way is not fine with me, I said. Im only saying its up to you.
If you want to know the truth, I dont want to leave you, she said after a
moment.
All right, then dont leave me, I said. (Sheep 25)

Later on, he visits his business partner, whom he has known since college. Blaming his
partners alcoholism, boku says, we just werent the friends we had once been (54). As
they debate the overall merits of their small print and advertising business, boku tells
him: Dull translation jobs or fraudulent copy, its basically the same. Sure were
tossing out fluff, but tell me, where does anyone deal in words with substance? Cmon
now, theres no honest work anywhere (58).
In both cases, boku is confronted with a choice, yet he is unable or unwilling to
commit to a decision. He will neither plead for his wife to stay nor agree to a divorce,
and he will neither acknowledge his partners misgivings nor offer a solution. Id lost
my hometown, lost my teens, lost my wife, in another three months Id lose my twenties,
he muses. Whatd be left of me when I got to be 60, I couldnt imagine (175). Feeling
22

locked into his fate, he drifts along in a form of limbo, smoking cigarettes and downing
beers in solitude. When others attempt to know his thoughts, he rebuffs them, politely
yet firmly.
Such treatment extends even to those whom boku still considers his friends.
Despite his fond memories of his conversations with J and the Rat years ago, for different
reasons both are now excluded from his deeper feelings. J is a benevolent quasi-father
figure who probes bokus mind for insight into his aimless life, but each time boku
deflects his questions with a simple, uncommitted answer. Perhaps it is because the Rat
is gone that boku cannot engage in the heartfelt talk with J that he needs; more likely, it is
the Rat himself whom boku misses. The Rat provides a ray of hope in the back of bokus
thoughts, and it is their subconscious reunion at the narrative climax that signifies the
momentary achievement of bokus psychological quest. Yet for most of the novel, the
Rats presence exists in only two forms: his letters to boku that reveal his deteriorating,
anti-social condition, and the Rats ex-girlfriend, who boku meets briefly to pass on the
letters. The Rats messages serve as a glimpse of bokus possible future if he does not
escape his own shell. Because the letters lack a return address, boku is unable to respond
in kindso his feelings remain blocked behind his faade.
It seems that boku has always been cut off from others, as his matter-of-fact
demeanor is a permanent element of his personality. His life has been a sad and lonely
struggle to discover meaning. With his marriage dissolved and his career outlook
darkened, he displays certain qualities that are consistent throughout the Murakami canon.
As Murakami translator J ay Rubin indicates, Murakamis young male protagonists tend
to present a generous fund of curiosity and a cool, detached, bemused acceptance of the
23

inherent strangeness of life (Rubin 37). Bokus stance in Sheep allows him to show
emotion only in extreme cases, so his first-person narration serves as a window into his
true feelings and thoughts. His inability to proceed through the passageway to his
subconscious is not the only reason for his condition. He recalls when his former wife
insisted on the transience of knowledge and memory due to constant transformations.
Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment, she says.
Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories (197).
Boku realizes that one day his ex-wife will be reduced to the random memories that
appear in his mind at unpredictable moments. Although he feels renewed hope when he
meets his girlfriend, there is still a part of him that believes in the impossibility of true
communication or self-knowledge. Despite his sense that a deeper part of his Self is
trying to break through, nothing is true or constant.
This belief stymies his marriage, his career, and his ability to move forward; he is
mired in a mixture of nostalgia, frustration, and regret. Yet although he takes no real
action, action is thrust upon him by external forces. Such forces appear in the second, or
encouragement, phase of bokus psychological journey in the form of two major
characters: his psychic girlfriend and the Bosss secretary. Both of them lead him to
believe that the subconscious is accessible, and so he begins to sense that the passage to
his core identity is beginning to open. Their influence is so strong that they propel boku
through the longest portion of the novel, from his first meeting with his girlfriend to their
arrival to the Rats house in northern Hokkaido. While his girlfriend and the secretary
have vastly different motivations, the proximity of their appearance in his life is a sign
that neither boku nor the reader can resist noticing.
24

The first instance of his encouragement begins when he is assigned to write ad
copy to accompany close-up photos of a young womans ears. Hoping for inspiration, he
pins the images above his desk and, over the course of a week, gradually becomes
enamored of their contours. Soon they begin to have a profound impact on his mind:
They were the dream image of an ear. The quintessence, the paragon of ears.
[] They were like some great whirlpool of fate sucking me in. One
astonishingly bold curve cut clear across the picture plane, others curled into
delicate filigrees of subtle shadow, while still others traced, like an ancient mural,
the legends of a past age. But the supple flesh of the earlobe surpassed them all,
transcending all beauty and desire. (Sheep 34)

This passage marks the beginning of bokus awakening from his perennial boredom, and
his focus on these ears is exactly what he needs to thrust both him and the narrative into
his larger, subconscious journey that will make up the majority of the book. Arranging to
meet the girl for dinner at a fine French restaurant with his confession that I had to see
your ears, he finds that she is not disarmed by his honesty (36). Bored and detached, she
presses him for an explanation of his sudden fixation: Tell me straight, because thats
my favorite angle (37). Midway through their awkward conversation, boku makes a
direct allusion to the J ungian stranger:
I turn a cornerjust as someone ahead of me turns the next corner. I cant see
what that person looks like. All I can make out is a flash of white coattails. But
the whiteness of the coattails is indelibly etched in my consciousness. Ever get
that feeling?
I suppose so.
Well, thats the feeling I get from your ears. (Sheep 37)

His confession to this young woman is significant, because thus far he has not
demonstrated such openness to anyone. This gives his girlfriend a firm position in the
profound category of the relationship table on page 19; his identification of something
special about her ears revives the hope he had lost at the end of the 1960s.
25

Where does bokus description of the J ungian stranger originate? It comes
without warning, as if both Murakami and boku are still unsure of what is being said or
where the narrative and conversation are going. Indeed, the author admits that he
groped my way through the first few chapters, still uncertain what kind of story would
developlike feeling my way through the dark (qtd in Rubin 81). Like Murakami,
boku maneuvers somewhat blindly through this meeting with the girl, with her ears
having triggered the beginning of his inner transformation from boredom to passion.
Overwhelmed by his lack of familiarity with this sensation, throughout their conversation
he is unable to articulate the inner changes taking place. At various points in their dinner,
he acknowledges to the reader, I couldnt figure how to get out of that (36), I forgot
what I was about to say (37), and Now I was completely lost (38). Regardless, she is
intrigued by his fascination with her ears, pressing him for more details on the
relationship between my ears and your feelings (38). His attempt to move beyond his
barricaded exterior is what motivates her to become very close friends (39), making her
the ideal medium for bokus psychological quest to begin in earnest.
With her revelation that there is a passageway between [my] ears and [my]
consciousness (40), she demonstrates a power that boku cannot understand. Her ears
signify exactly what he lacks himselfa conduit or portal to his subconscious, a device
that no Murakami protagonist will possess until The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He refers
to his utterly ordinary life, but it is because she feels his life is not boring (and, in fact,
full of potential) that she decides to reveal (and unblock) her ears in the middle of the
restaurant (41). Her doing so produces the following dramatic effect:
I swallowed my breath and gazed at her, transfixed. My mouth went dry. From
no part of me could I summon a voice. For an instant, the white plaster wall
26

seemed to ripple. The voices of the other diners and the clinking of their
dinnerware grew faint, then once again returned to normal. I heard the sound of
waves, recalled the scent of a long-forgotten evening. Yet all this was but a mere
fragment of the sensations passing through me in those few hundredths of a
second. (Sheep 44)

Despite the comic nature of this scene, with other restaurant patrons and the waiter all
staring agape at her (45), it confirms the existence of a new reality that boku can now
access (or at least observe) via his new girlfriends exquisite, unblocked ears. Blocked
ears are dead ears, she tells him. I killed my own ears. That is, I consciously cut off
the passageway (40). Yet now, in their temporarily unblocked state, boku sees a
possible route to his subconscious mind, and his perennial state of boredom and
detachment is shaken for the first time.
The dark-suited secretary is the other character to materialize during bokus
encouragement phase. Despite his antagonistic qualities and lack of psychological
resonance (making him a basic level relationship), he is critical for driving boku into
the novels physical action of the wild sheep chase; without this progress, boku cannot
reach the consummation of his psychological journey. The dark-suited secretary, the
Boss, and the mysterious sheep together represent the malaise that has infected J apan
since the end of the 1960s. Boku capitulates to the secretarys demands in the same way
his generation had given up to the authorities a decade earlier, bringing in the period of
mass disillusionment in which boku now lives. The secretary and another basic-level
character, the Sheep Professor (whom boku meets later), are instrumental in providing the
background of the novels plot as well as bokus objective focus in his mission.
The J ungian stranger takes the form of the Rat, yet looming behind bokus old
friend is the nebulous influence of the sheep. Boku learns that during World War II, the
27

sheep had found its way into the Boss, who was an ultra-nationalist member of the
J apanese Army (144). Using an ill-gotten mass of riches from the war in Manchuria, the
Boss built up a powerful and influential underground kingdom that is, by the time of
the novel, already well entrenched in J apanese society and government (139). Murakami
acknowledges that sheep are a kind of symbol of the reckless speed with which the
J apanese state pursued a course of modernization (qtd. in Rubin 91), and in both Hard-
Boiled Wonderland and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, different incarnations of this
malevolent, all-encompassing force will be portrayed. Bokus initial attempt to rebel
against this authority is his ineffective revival of the spirit of the previous decade.
One may wonder, however, why a sheep? The sheep lies at the heart of bokus
growing intrigue. Does it have significance in J apanese culture and history? Would
analysis of ovine origins and connotations bring us, as Western readers, any closer to
comprehending Murakamis intentions? As the secretary points out, the sheep is a
member of the twelve-animal Chinese zodiac, and the ancient astronomical symbols had
been adopted into J apanese culture centuries before. Before delving too much into his
choice of imagery, however, it is important to acknowledge that Murakami himself has
said very little. He states:
I made no story outline for A Wild Sheep Chase other than to use sheep as a
kind of key word and to bring the foreground character I [boku] and the
background character Rat together at the end. Thats the books entire
structureAnd I believe that if the novel does succeed it is because I myself do
not know what the sheep means. (qtd. in Rubin 90)

Strecher offers, however, that the sheep symbolizes the J apanese state, which is a
sinister presence that seeks to promulgate a sense of collective identity, a dictatorship
over the mind, among members of contemporary J apanese society (Magical Realism
28

279). Because of bokus connection with the idealism of the 1960s, this is the true source
of his disquiet. By unblocking the passage to his subconscious (like his girlfriend can via
her ears), hesucceeds in completing the Rats mission of destroying this malignant aspect
of society. However, in order to keep the way unblocked, boku must remove the
impenetrable barriers he has built around his persona. Without doing so, the path will
close forever, leaving him once again in solitude; this is the unfortunate fate hemeets at
the novels conclusion.
The supernatural sheep is a malicious entity seeking world domination. It
selectively enters a human host so as to accomplish a precise set of objectives; once
these goals are accomplished, the sheep abandons its host in favor of another person
better suited for the next step. Yet those it abandons are never returned to their prior state,
for the vastness of the sheeps own being replaces the hosts mind with its own.
Therefore, the host enjoys the contentment of luxury, and freedom from the tediousness
of thinking, but no longer enjoys the personal fulfillment of an individual identity
(Strecher, Magical Realism 279). The so-called sheepless, as the Sheep Professor
later calls them, are left behind as little more than empty husks of their original selves
(222). This ravaged condition will be visited again in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, which
introduces the technological ability to tinker with the black box of ones consciousness
(255); it is also an important theme of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, where the
protagonists nemesis has the malevolent means to defile ones core identity (41).
The corruption that Murakami notes in the J apanese state is crystallized in what
the dark-suited secretary reverentially calls the Bosss single minded Will, to which he
attributes the Bosss massive, fraudulent success (140). This Will, the secretary explains,
29

is a concept that governs time, governs space, and governs possibilityall the while
keeping mediocrity at bay (141). He adds:
If the Boss dies, it means the end of everything, inasmuch as our organization
was not a bureaucracy, but a perfectly timed machine with one mind at its apex.
Herein is the strength and weakness of our organization. Or rather, was. The
death of the Boss will sooner or later bring a splintering of the organization, and
like a Valhalla consumed by flames, it will plunge into a sea of mediocrity.
(Sheep 140)

In the cold, stern eyes of the secretary, boku epitomizes mediocrity, and for this reason he
is despised. People can generally be classified into two groups: the mediocre realists
and the mediocre dreamers, the secretary tells him. You clearly belong to the latter
(127). Boku is forced to acknowledge that bad word of mouth would ruin his modest
business, and the secretary both knows this and has the means to bring such ruin to
fulfillment.
What the man does not comprehend is that, as boku tells him, mediocrity takes
many forms (145). The protagonist has nothing to lose, and his act of rebellion against
the secretary is thematically vital, necessary to demonstrate his independent, self-
interested stance toward the mystery (Strecher, Beyond 359). With this understanding
somewhere in his subconscious, boku maintains his defiant attitude, even turning their
conversation into a kind of game: Everything was a bluff, but it made sense the way
things were going. The uncertainty of the silence that followed showed I had earned
myself a few points (129). Later, however, boku acknowledges to his girlfriend that If
we dont find that sheep well be up to our necks in itif those guys say theyre going to
get us, theyre going to get us (202). This revelation shows that the gravity of his task
has registered. He is threatened with his own erasure from society, with the implicit
30

understanding that his friend Rat will suffer the same fate, and this knowledge propels
him wholeheartedly into his mission (Strecher, Beyond 359).
This is the encouragement that boku needs to step into action. He is motivated to
prove to the secretary the power of mediocrity. Yet because boku lacks empathy, it is
much simpler for him to refuse blind obedience to the secretarys demands than to
accomplish his twofold quest for the sheep and his Self. He knows that the Bosss
egotistic Will bears responsibility for the boredom and detachment he has felt since all
hope collapsed in his college days. His cool attitude with the secretary is a boon in this
case, for it buffers him from any personal display of fear, anger, or regret. Yet this
condition also prevents him from demonstrating his love and appreciation of his
girlfriend; it does not allow boku to live as a normal human being. Underneath his
bravado he is shaken by the secretarys warning. He cannot fully exist on the peripheral
of his feelings; he must find a way to clear the route to his subconscious and identify the
hidden stranger in order to maintain his momentum towards feeling complete.
To be sure, boku is never entirely cut off from the rest of the world. As the
relationship table on page 19 indicates, throughout the novel he engages in a number of
serious conversations that address intellectual, philosophical, and personal matters.
Throughout his entertaining and insightful discourse he effortlessly demonstrates his wit
and intelligence. Even in his most unguarded moments, however, he has trouble
articulating his ideas and feelings. Before long he grows confused, bored, or anxious
about a pressing situation, and he closes himself off again. It is only via the motivation
and guidance of others that, at the novels climax, he is able to arrive at the doorstep of
his unknown Self. Bokus ability to proceed through the door on his own is short-lived,
31

but it is just enough for him to succeed. However, when he reemerges from his
psychological journey he is utterly alone, as his social barriers prevented him from
reciprocating to others in kind. In other words, he has taken too much and given too little
in return.
Despite his initial resistance, boku sees his new sheep-hunting mission as an
important opportunity, and his girlfriend is enthusiastic about the prospect of their
impending journey to Hokkaido. The psychic abilities she receives from her ears provide
boku a vantage point that potentially gives him a direct link to his own subliminal needs.
As if to mark this transformation, the Bosss limousine chauffeur cheerfully informs boku
that he possesses Gods telephone number and can call him anytime he wishes: All
you have to do is to speak honestly about whatever concerns you or troubles you. No
matter how trivial you might think it is (150). Although the driver is a minor character,
his statement penetrates bokus exterior and establishes a brief profound connection. It is
not as meaningful as the relationship boku has developed with his girlfriend, but it is clear
that his two conversations with the chauffeur provide him with more encouragement. He
does not take the chauffeur seriously, but the mans timely hint about divine intervention
is something that boku could use. Fortunately, his girlfriends ears are a suitable
consolation. Always one step ahead of him in their mission, she keeps him focused
whenever he begins to drift off course. Her unblocked ears maintain their power as a
beacon that both gathers his attention and anchors him in confidence as their travels take
them further and further north.
Yet after they meet the Sheep Professor and learn more about the sheep and the
precise location where the photograph was taken, her influence and importance begin to
32

fade. As a sign that his own faculties are becoming more reliable, boku recalls that the
Rats father had a vacation villa in the mountains of Hokkaido. This coincides with the
Sheep Professors instructions, so boku and his girlfriend take a long train ride from
Sapporo and pass into the desolate north, where the relentless snow will soon cut off the
roads until the spring thaw. The further they push from civilization, the more focused
boku grows on his task, for he is drawing into his identification phase. She asks him,
You still like my ears? (277); although he answers yes, her role has diminished. By the
time they reach the abandoned two-story house in the barren wastes, where the Rat has
been living a monastic existence, she becomes little more than a distraction. He cannot
rely upon her psychic powers any longer, for she claims that if I open my ears, I get a
headache (283). There is nothing more she can offer him in his psychological quest. As
if coming to this conclusion by herself, she finds her escape route when boku takes a nap
on the Rats sofa. He awakens to find dinner prepared and his girlfriend gone. As one
critic writes, the act [of her disappearance] keenly brings out how little either the reader
or the protagonist knows about her (Cassegard 86). Despite her crucial role in
motivating boku forward, in this novel she is no longer relevant.
2
She serves as the first
of several such female vanishings in the three novels; they either stir the protagonist into
action or allow the momentum of his actions to be completed.
Sheep depicts the latter case. For a moment, boku feels loss and desolation: the
vacated atmosphere of the house was final, undeniable (286). However, in this new
phase he has identified the house as the physical site of his subconscious confrontation.
He refocuses his mind on the Rat and decides to wait for the J ungian stranger to make

2
In the novels sequel, Dance Dance Dance, boku embarks on a search for his girlfriend (whose name is
revealed as Kiki), whom he can subconsciously hear softly, almost imperceptibly, weeping. A sobbing
from somewhere in the darkness. Someone is crying for me (2).
33

another sign from within. The Sheep Man is such a sign; his purpose is to replace bokus
girlfriend by provid[ing] a line of communication between the protagonist and the sheep
(Strecher, Beyond 360). He also scolds boku for neglecting her. You confused that
woman, he says in his strange accent. All you think about is yourself (298). Boku is
unperturbed by these words, for he is more interested in the whereabouts of the sheep and
the Rat. Even as his connection to his core identity grows stronger, his self-centeredness
and lack of empathy for others have never changed. He does not consider these
shortcomings to be relevant for his present goal, but by the novels end the full force of
his actions will overwhelm him with grief.
3

Over the next few days, boku comes to understand that the Sheep Man will never
answer all the questions that boku is anxious to ask. Without the perceptive powers of his
departed girlfriends ears, boku struggles to finalize the link to his subconsciousuntil he
realizes that the Sheep Mans appearance means that he already has succeeded. It is now
only a matter of time before the J ungian stranger emerges. Understanding that the Sheep
Man is the Rat in disguise, boku initiates a purification process to encourage him to make
his appearance. He says:
The more I thought about it, the more difficult I found it to escape the feeling that
the Sheep Mans actions reflected the Rats will. The Sheep Man had driven my
girlfriend from the mountain and left me here alone. His showing up here was
undoubtedly a harbinger of something. Something was progressing all around me.
The area was being swept clean and purified. Something was about to happen.
(308)

In preparation for his anticipated visitor, boku takes brisk morning jogs through the field
surrounding the house, cooks healthy meals, showers regularly, and scrubs the entire

3
Bokus counterparts in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle will demonstrate two more attempts by the Murakami protagonist to move beyond the borders of
their selves and show compassion to others. The extent of their success is directly relevant to their
psychological journeys.
34

house. Rubin points out that this purification process has a traditional religious
connotation: Murakami uses an archaic expression, atari ga hakikiyomerareru: the
area was being swept clean and purified, much as the sacred space of a Shinto shrine
would be ritually purified in preparation for the appearance of a god (Rubin 87). This
god may not be divine, but bokus psychological transformation has reached a nearly
spiritual level. Focused on his new ritual, he feels everything flowing on without him
and, as if becoming a part of the flow, he proceeds with an almost poetically described
ritual of cleaning (Rubin 88).
Having arrived at the threshold of his core identity, he begins the final stage of his
psychological process, fulfillment. In the cold blackness of night, his reclusive friend at
last makes his presence known: May I say my piece? the Rat asks (325). Boku
embarks upon a subconscious dialogue with the Rats ghost; while the Rat is not real in
the physical sense of the term, boku has created his friend from the depths of his newly
unblocked subconscious mind. While his meetings with the Sheep Man were largely
imaginary, they had a basis in the real world, since the Sheep Man is a visible entity who
interacts with the physical environment. Yet bokus conversation with the Rat takes
place in utter darkness, where the borders between the conscious and subconscious
worlds can no longer be discerned. Darkness will be shown to have a similar function in
both the vast Tokyo subway system in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and in the deep dry well
of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The deeper boku progresses into his subconscious, the
darker and colder it becomes. Yet his psychological progress sharpens his senses, so he
understands that his friend has already committed suicide. I died with the sheep in me,
the Rat explains. I waited until the sheep was fast asleep, then I tied a rope over the
35

beam in the kitchen and hanged myself. There wasnt enough time for the sucker to
escape (332).
Bokus conversation with the Rat revives their long-lost comraderie. They drink
beer and converse in such a casual manner that his friend remarks that it seems like the
old days (326). It takes boku some time to ask, Youre already dead, arent you?
(330). His assertion signifies his full recognition of his core identity; in the form of the
Rat, the J ungian stranger is forced to reveal what is at stake if the sheepand by
extension, the Bosswins. Give your body over to it and everything goes, the Rat
explains. Consciousness, values, emotions, pain, everything. Gone (335). The loss of
these vital personal qualities is demonstrated in both Hard-Boiled Wonderland (via the
residents of the dreamlike Town) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (via the savage
defilement of someones identity). Sheep foreshadows the inevitability of total
conceptual anarchy, as the Rat calls it (335). With his subconscious conversation, boku
learns the means to put a temporary hold upon the surging chaos that later Murakami
protagonists will have to face directly.
J ung wrote that whoever attains individual consciousness must necessarily break
through the frontiers of the unconscious, for this contains what, above all else, he needs
to know (Psychological Reflections 205). The Rat has told boku the true nature of the
hair-raising evil that he is up against; what boku needs to know at last is how to finish
the task that his friend had started with his suicide: destroying the sheep, whose power
still lingers in the house (335). He follows the Rats instructions and sets off a bomb
whose explosion disintegrates all remnants of the Bosss revered Will, including the
36

sheep and the secretary. By extension, as the secretary had predicted, the Bosss entire
organization will soon crumble away into the void.
Or will it? As will be shown in the next two novels, bokus triumph is short-lived.
Reminding us that the adversary State against which boku had battled in the 1960s has
become more powerful, and, indeed, more deadly, than ever, Strecher writes, Against
such an opponent, what real hope can there be for a satisfyingly conclusive ending?
(Beyond 360-361). Boku echoes this sentiment on a personal level when he moans to
the Sheep Professor, Ive lost practically everything (349). This includes his career, his
twenties, his wife, his best friend, his girlfriend, and also, as he soon will discover, the
subconscious link he had struggled so hard to obtain. Youve got your life, the Sheep
Professor replies, but this does nothing to comfort bokus sense of defeat (349). His
newly forged path to his subconscious is meaningless without a sociological connection
to the outside world. Boku is more alone than ever before.
In his desire to purge his mind of his wild sheep chase, boku focuses himself once
again on the steady passage of time. In just this way, he says, one day at a time, I
learned to distance myself from memory. Until that day in the uncertain future when a
distant voice calls out of the lacquer blackness (350). He has learned how to identify
this voice if it should reappear, but the route has already closed again. With the Rat now
truly gone, bokus last chance to reopen that passage is to renew his personal
relationships, so he visits the bar owner J once more in the novels epilogue. To boku, J
embodies forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance, and he is the best person to lure
out bokus feelings (303). Yet the only way he can reciprocate J s quiet acquiescence is
to give him the check he received as payment from the secretarya check valued enough
37

to take care of all the bar owners debts, with change to spare (352). This gift is all
boku can do to compensate for his typical lack of communication, and when he leaves,
there is no guarantee that hewill ever see the bar owner again.
In the novels final scene, boku finds his way to a tiny beach, where the sea had
once dominated the view before being pushed back to allow for the development of new
houses and apartment buildings. Truly alone, he cannot suppress his emotions any
longer: I sat down on the last fifty yards of beach, and I cried. I never cried so much in
my life (353). His solitude offers no comfort to his overwhelming sense of loss and
despair. His idealistic years have long been over, and the bitter days of disappointment
ahead have no foreseeable end. The world has moved on, like the human bodys
constantly replicating cells, leaving all memory and relationships behind. Nostalgia is
meaningless, as it grasps nothing but ghostsfeelings that once existed but cannot be
adequately resurrected.
Every progress of humanity, every achievement in the field of perception, has
been bound up with progress in self-realization, J ung claimed, but boku has fallen short
of that goal (Psychological Reflections 204). Without the ability to demonstrate his
empathy for others, boku will never be able to maintain a connection with his
subconscious. I brushed the sand from my trousers and got up, as if I had somewhere to
go (353). He has nowhere to go, but he knows that he must keep moving. And although
he will learn a new strategy to carry him forward in the sequel Dance Dance Dance, for
the purpose of this paper the boku of A Wild Sheep Chase must pass the baton of hope to
his counterpart in Hard-Boiled Wonderland to renew his attempt at individuation. Yet
38

boku is still determined to push ahead somehow, until his own opportunity, whatever it
may be, returns.

39

Chapter Two

Making the Best of Both Worlds: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
(Sekai no owari to Haadoboirudo Wandaarando)

In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami expands the
scope of his narrative into a parallel, dual-layered reality consisting of both the physical
world and the subconscious nestled within. Each realm, presented in alternating chapters,
is depicted from the first-person perspective of the formalized watashi in the former and
the more casual boku in the latter. Although some critics have labeled the novel as
cybernetic fiction in a vein similar to William Gibson and certain works by Italo
Calvino, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and many others, Murakami himself has
refused to classify it (Porush 45). At its heart is a continuation of the themes he
introduced in A Wild Sheep Chase: the protagonists attempt to establish a firm
connection between his conscious and subconscious selves. Because of the dual narrative
structure in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, however, this connection can only be established
at the very nexus of the two interlocking worlds, where the J ungian stranger resides.
Both watashi and boku progress towards the unknown aspect of their selves in a
linear path similar to that of the protagonist in the previous novel, but because of the split
narrativethese routes move in converging directions. In this novel, boku is not the
cynical, emotionally-guarded man readers had grown familiar with in A Wild Sheep
Chase; he is instead much more earnest and solemnyet not completely real. Watashi,
however, has a personality very similar to that of boku in A Wild Sheep Chase, and he
occupies a world that is both credible and familiar. Both narrators are faced with
dilemmas that, while reminiscent of the psychological quest established in the previous
novel, extend into unexplored territory regarding the replicable nature of ones
40

consciousness and constructed impressions of reality. Their narratives present the two
interconnected storylines of the novel: the hard-boiled wonderland of watashis near-
future Tokyo, and the man-made end of the world in which boku dwells that exists
within watashis subconscious.
While in the previous novel the protagonist attempts to strip away the layers of his
consciousness in order to reach the core of his identity, in Hard-Boiled Wonderland the
main protagonist is a man whose brain is lobotomized into two separate selves that are at
best only dimly aware of the other. Instead of the one-way path that A Wild Sheep
Chases boku carved towards his subconscious, Hard-Boiled Wonderland presents a two-
way street, with two Is trying to meet at the point where their paths intersect. Their
methods may differ, but the process in which they seek out the J ungian stranger in one
another follows the same four-phase system already introduced: awareness,
encouragement, identification, and fulfillment. As before, their relationships with other
characters, primarily female, have direct bearing upon their progress. Yet because the
two narratives depict very different environments, I will now provide a brief synopsis of
the novel.
It begins with watashi, who works as a cerebral data processor/number-cruncher
called a Calcutec. His near-future, alternate-reality Tokyo is the backdrop of a vicious
cybernetic war over information. He and his fellow Calcutecs are at odds with the
underworld Semiotecs, who are depicted as violent, yakuza-like thugs known to use
unorthodox methods in retrieving the information they seek. Watashi makes his way to a
secret underground lab to meet an old Professor, who gives him secret data to decode via
a special technological device implanted in watashis brain. The data can only be
41

manipulated through a complicated mental process called shuffling (31). As watashi
prepares to return home to complete the job, the Professors teenage granddaughter gives
him what appears to be a unicorn skull. Watashi enlists the help of a young woman at the
library to identify the skulls true identity, and the two become lovers.
Meanwhile, watashis subconscious counterpart boku arrives at a dreamlike
pastoral community called the Town, which is surrounded by a high, impenetrable Wall.
Before he is allowed to enter, the burly Gatekeeper cuts away bokus sentient shadow,
which is then forced to help the Gatekeeper keep watch over the Towns numerous
unicorn-like beasts (12). Telling boku that everyone in the Town has a specific role,
the Gatekeeper assigns him the task of Dreamreader (39). Boku meets the Librarian, a
demure young woman who assists him in his work, which consists of releasing dreams
from beast skulls. His shadow, now a prisoner of the Gatekeeper, asks boku to create a
map of the Town so that the two of them can escape; if boku does not complete the task
soon, his weakening shadow will die at the coming of winter. Boku begins the mission in
earnest, but the mysteries of the Town, particularly the Librarian, stimulate his own
fading sense of mind. He begins to wonder if there is any way to get through the Wall,
and whether he possesses the full desire to do so.
Watashi is woken in the middle of the night by the Professors granddaughter,
who fears that her grandfather is in trouble with the rival Semiotecs. When she fails to
meet him at an all-night snack bar, watashi returns home and is accosted by J unior and
Big Boy, two Semiotec thugs. They appear to be after the unicorn skull, which watashi
had safeguarded in a locker at the train station. After they wreck his apartment and slash
his stomach, watashi returns to the Professors office to meet the granddaughter. She
42

leads him into the depths of the vast Tokyo underground in order to reach her
grandfathers secret laboratory. She hopes to rescue him from marauding Semiotecs and
monstrous subterranean creatures known as INKlings, but watashis main objective is to
learn more about the unicorn skull, what the Semiotecs are looking for, and the reason for
his feelings of dj vu.
Back in the Town, boku is alarmed at the deteriorating condition of his shadow.
Despite the shadows desire to escape, boku admits that he has fallen in love with the
Librarian. His shadow explains that all the inhabitants of the Town, being without their
own shadows, have lost all memory and feeling; boku will meet the same fate unless he
and his shadow can get away and be rejoined. Boku and the Librarian meet the Caretaker
of an old power generator in the forest; his task is monotonous and lonely, and boku fears
that if he stays too long he will grow the same way. The Caretaker gives him an old
accordion that no one knows how to play, and boku rediscovers music. He decides to
apply his improved dream-reading powers to help the Librarian restore her mind.
Watashi and the granddaughter encounter numerous horrors on their dark route to
the Professors lab. The Professor has retreated further into the tunnels to a safe location,
and when they find him he tells watashi about the experiments that he had done on his
brain. The Professor had implanted a constructed consciousness there, called the end of
the world, and in a short time this hidden world is set to kill watashis body and pull his
identity into its lifelike yet artificial reality. Because the Professors lab was destroyed,
there is no way to reverse the process. In bitter resignation, watashi makes his way back
to the world above and meets his librarian girlfriend. He passes his remaining hours of
life at the waterfront alone in his car, where he falls asleep to the music of Bob Dylan.
43

Having succeeded in piecing together the Librarians mind, boku knows he can
never abandon her. He frees his shadow from the Gatekeepers prison and leads him to
the Pool, which is the only possible way through the impervious Wall. His shadow
pleads him to come as well, but boku has found his place in the Town and has begun to
sense the Librarians feelings for him. After his shadow slips into the Pool, boku trudges
back through the snow to remain with her forever.
The two narrators move through their four stages towards self-realization on
separate paths that coincide at key points. As in A Wild Sheep Chase, their psychological
quests can only be accomplished with the assistance of other characters. Their success is
thus critically dependent upon their emotional involvement with othersparticularly a
love interest. Watashi is more open and generous with his librarian girlfriend than A Wild
Sheep Chases protagonist is with the psychic ear model, but it is the boku of Hard-
Boiled Wonderland who is the most heroic. His desire to restore the Librarians mind,
despite his feeling that I belong in that [other] world with his shadow, is a significant
progression from the selfishness of the previous boku (349). However, in this novel
Murakami only implies the nature of watashi and bokus ultimate fates. It can be
presumed that watashis conscious world is obliterated by his internal end of the world,
but as the old Professor assures him, Youll be losin everything from here, but itll all
be there (274). Therefore, it would seem that, despite the psychological and social
barriers boku has penetrated, hewill be lost when his own identity is swept away byor
merged intowatashis. While not ideal, watashis fate is preferable to that of the
protagonist in A Wild Sheep Chase, for he will not be alone. Taken together, the fates of
the two narrators are ambivalent instead of pessimistic.
44

The structure of Hard-Boiled Wonderlands dual psychological process works a
bit differently than in the previous novel. Watashi and bokus converging paths, in which
each serves as the others J ungian stranger, can only be perceived and aligned by the all-
knowing reader. Their separate journeys correspond in the following manner:
(1) Awareness: Watashi and boku encounter cluescentered on unicorn skulls,
librarians, and the phrase end of the worldthat suggest their counterparts
existence.
(2) Encouragement: With greater understanding of their respective situations,
both narrators join with a female companion and undergo an active quest for
more answers.
(3) Identification: Having achieved their immediate goals, they are faced with a
new reality that indicates at long last what they need to do in order to
complete their psychological journeys.
(4) Fulfillment: The conscious and subconscious worlds converge. Boku is swept
away as watashi takes his place in the End of the World.
Before exploring these phases in detail, it is important to acknowledge the
relevance that J ungs Shadow archetype plays in this novel. Murakamis inclusion of the
shadow character as the representation of bokus fading memories and identity does not
have any intentional J ungian significance, but there are some notable points to make. In
J ung, the Shadow serves as the counterpart to the Self. He wrote, Everyone carries a
shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and
denser it is (J ung, P&R 93). In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, of course, the shadow is
literally cut away from bokus body, and it fades from black and dense to a pathetic,
45

haggard [figure], all eyes and beard (245). This is the opposite of J ungs archetype;
Murakamis shadow begins to die from corporeal malnourishment the longer it is isolated
from the conscious mind. The twist is that because the End of the World is not physically
real, boku is not truly conscious; instead it is watashi whose waking mind is represented
by the shadow in this realm. Becauseboku cannot rejoin his shadow, he must find a
different path to unite with watashi. Likewise, watashi is not aware of the contents of his
subconscious implant, which the Professor calls a black box (255). Being the one who
created the End of the World in the first place, the Professor is watashis link to any
direct knowledge of that unknown world.
The J ungian Shadow, while different from the hidden stranger, represents ones
repressed desires and fears. When it remains concealed, it does more harm than good
and appears in extreme cases as ones unconscious contents which then project
themselves spontaneously into incongruousdoctrines or practices (J ung, Science of
Mythology 104). Therefore, as the repressed parts of ourselves, shadows are not
inherently evil, but may become so if left unclaimed (Keller 51). J ungs Shadow is the
origin of malevolence, while Murakamis shadow is a voice of rationality and sense.
Boku, as will be shown, seeks to restore this part of his mind, just as watashi stumbles
through the dark tunnels of his subconscious, represented by the Tokyo underground.
Although J ung and Murakami have opposing views of the nature of shadows, on one
point they would agree. If it comes to a neurosis, we have invariably to deal with a
considerably intensified shadow, J ung wrote. And if such a case wants to be cured it is
necessary to find a way in which mans conscious personality and his shadow can live
46

together (J ung, P&R 93). Such a solution is not viable for boku, despite his shadows
urgent situation, so he needs to find another way to restore his mind.
As in A Wild Sheep Chase, the relationships that the two narrators have with other
characters play a critical role in merging their worlds into one. Based on boku and
watashis interior monologues and actual conversations, again the four-category table of
relationships helps to define the significance of their interactions as they move through
their psychological processes. As before, characters classified as basic, personal, and
profound enable the narrator to confront his subconscious J ungian stranger at the novels
climax. For the sake of comparison, I have included the relationships from A Wild Sheep
Chase as well.
Relationship
Type
A Wild Sheep
Chase
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and
the End of the World
boku watashi
The Basic The Rats ex-
girlfriend
the black-suited
secretary
the Sheep
Professor
The Caretaker J unior and Big Boy
The Personal the Chinese bar
owner J
bokus business
partner
bokus ex-wife
the owner of the
Dolphin Hotel
The Colonel
The Gatekeeper
The Professor
The Professors
granddaughter
The Profound the limousine
chauffeur
bokus girlfriend
The Librarian
bokus shadow
librarian girlfriend
The Subconscious the Sheep Man/the
Rat
watashi (the outer
self)
boku (the inner self)

Female roles, shown in boldface, represent the most important relationships
overall. All threethe granddaughter, the librarian girlfriend, and the Librarian
47

motivate the narrators to struggle beyond their perceived boundaries. They also change
their attitudes. The librarian and granddaughter penetrate watashis hard-boiled
emotional shell, one that finds concrete representation in the impenetrable walls that
surround the town as well (Strecher, Magical Realism 286). The Librarian helps boku
awaken the faded areas of his mind that were in danger due to his separation from his
shadow. This correlation between the women who exist in real-world Tokyo and those
occupying the imaginary Town is significant. Murakami explains:
My protagonist is almost always caught between the spiritual world and the real
world. In the spiritual world, the womenor menare quiet, intelligent, modest.
Wise. In the realistic worldthe women are very active, comic, positive. They
have a sense of humor. The protagonist's mind is split between these totally
different worlds, and he cannot choose which to take. I think thats one of the
main motifs in my work. (Murakami, qtd. in Wray 134)

As will be shown, the three women characters of Hard-Boiled Wonderland fit into these
two categories. Watashis librarian girlfriend and the granddaughter assert themselves
into his life with humor and action, while bokus Librarian is a calm, steadying force.
Because watashi and boku are two halves of the same physical person, the distinct
narrative style of the alternating chapters represents watashis split mind; it is the readers
key to understanding the two disparate realities. Whereas the J apanese original uses the
watashi/boku duality to accomplish this, the novels English translator, Alfred Birnbaum,
chose to use varying verb tenses in order to form a distinction between the two narrators
worlds thatimparts a timeless quality (Rubin 117). Use of the present tense in the
boku chapters instead of the traditional past tense suggests a perpetual narrative now
outside of the flow of history (Hantke 16).
As I delve into the narrators four stages towards self-realization, it is important to
introduce the differences in their respective environments and personal traits. Much like
48

the protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase, watashi is characterized by a sense of
rebelliousness and marginality, and his principle talent is dealing with unusual
especially dangeroussituations (Strecher, Beyond 362). This talent is derived
from his hard-boiled persona, in which some of his personality traits superficially
resemble those of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Professor William Marling sums up the
traditional hard-boiled protagonist as:
usually a detective of the private eye variety[who] used special expertise to
restore a lossfor little or no money, often simply for justice. They met
challenges, trials, obstacles, and temporary defeats ... [and] also [carried] on the
tradition of verbal prowess: he or she [could] use language against opponents and
[was] conscious of words and their effects. (Marling, Hard-Boiled Fiction)

Watashi exerts much of this attitude, particularly in his verbal interactions and narrative
asidesbut he is not particularly tough or brave. Nor are the two female characters he
depends on reminiscent of the femme fatales often found in the dime store pulp detective
novel. Instead, they help him navigate through confounding and hostile situations.
Without them, he cannot achieve understanding of his ultimate destiny.
At first glance, the world portrayed in the watashi chapters might seem familiar to
the modern reader, yet there are grave dangers just beyond the borders of the narrative.
Tokyo is rampant with corruption and violence; it is an extreme rendition of the Bosss
Will, fueled by the power of the malevolent sheep, that was only a vague suggestion in A
Wild Sheep Chase. On the surface, this high-tech, postindustrial realm contains some
science-fiction elements not unlike the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson (despite
Murakamis denial of such influence)
4
. It becomes apparent, however, that aside from
some advances in technology and a greater sense of urban menace, little in watashis

4
Rubin testifies to Murakamis denial of using Gibsons short story J ohnny Mnemonic as a resource on
p.121 of Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words.
49

Tokyo differs from the real thing. Working for a powerful quasi-governmental
organization called the System, watashi was technologically-implanted with unique
laundering and shuffling abilities (31). These skills makes him invaluable to both the
System and his rival Semiotecs. Heexplains, The more we Calcutecs up our
technologies, the more [the Semiotecs] up their counter-technologies. We safeguard the
data, they steal it. Your classic cops-and-robbers routine (33).
No data is more top secret and precious than the End of the World, which was
designed by the Professor and placed into a coding/decoding device only the size of an
azuki bean fixed inside watashis brain (259). This black box, in a society of vicious
info-wars, is considered more secure than a computer; it prevents all unauthorized
accesseven by watashi himself. As he comes to learn, the Professor had conducted
experiments with watashis brain. He had mapped watashis core consciousness, fed the
various patterns into a supercomputer, and rearrang[ed] everything into a story (262).
This story, or rendered visualization (262), is depicted as the dreamlike Town full of
beasts and people without shadows and surrounded by an impenetrable Wall.
Yet early in the novel, in his awareness phase, watashi knows nothing of the
Professors involvement with his brain, nor of the world that is implanted there. This is
the knowledge that he seeks, and his acquisition of that knowledge will carry him to his
final merging with the subconscious boku. Amidst all the imagery of high-tech data
processing, the unicorn skull watashi receives from the Professor stands out in stark
contrast, giving him the sneaking suspicion that Id seen [it] before (71). The research
that he and his librarian girlfriend conduct suggests that the skull is the remnant of a lost
world discovered by a Russian scientist during World War I (103). He believes that the
50

skull is linked to the encoded information that the Professor has given him to secure in
his computer-like brain. The password that watashi uses to process the data is End of
the World, which to him is the title of a profoundly personal drama (112). Yet
because the exact contents of this drama transpire in a sea of chaos in which [he]
submerges empty-handed and from which [he] resurfaces empty-handed, only the
Professor can explain what it signifies (114).
From the beginning, watashis dependenceon female characters is divided
between the Professors granddaughter and watashis librarian girlfriend. Although he
meets the granddaughter first, her only role during his awareness stage is to direct him
silently into the subterranean darkness for the first time and to give him the unicorn skull.
Watashi then solicits the librarian for help in deciphering the skulls significance. She
and the protagonist form a profound bond that grounds himin his conscious reality,
demonstrating what he stands to lose when the End of the World wipes away his physical
realm. He needs this stability, since his world soon becomes topsy-turvy with
unannounced visits by hostile Semiotecs and long treks through the Tokyo sewers.
Although she vanishes from the narrative during the novels middle section, watashi
rejoins with her towards the end in order to complete his psychological journey;
thereafter, when he merges into bokus world, her presence will be assumed by bokus
Librarian. It is significant that she and the granddaughter never appear together, since
they represent watashis active desires and subconscious needs, respectively. The
manner in which they do this will be explained in greater detail later in this chapter.
Unlike watashi, the boku of Hard-Boiled Wonderland is marked by an earnest
idealism and modesty that is drawn from his alienation from his shadow, which is
51

associated with his memories and identity, his past and thus his mind (Strecher, Dances
280). Without a shadow, he has no mind, memories, or identity; he is known only as the
Dreamreader. Such an existence is not without its merits; some aspects of no-mind
suggest the taste of a development toward higher states of consciousness (Haney 140).
As his shadow languishes in the Gatekeepers prison, boku is able to expand his spiritual
nature, and his love of the Librarian grows. Unlike J ungs Shadow archetype, which only
grows stronger when blocked from the conscious mind, neither boku nor his shadow can
survive for long without each other. Boku comes to learn that the townsfolk have
likewise given up their shadows in order to settle within the Town, and they have become
little more than ghosts. This quality affects the Towns atmosphere, which seems post-
nuclear[with] vague reminders of a past receding from a consciousness losing its grip
on reality (Haney 134). Although the sense of danger in and around the Town is not as
pervasive as that presented in watashis Tokyo, there are consequences to bokus actions
in his surreal realm, and as his shadow dies he faces the possibility of being trapped in the
End of the World forever.
Boku uses a sincere and solemn narrative style that counteracts watashis
bemused cynicism. In J apanese, his term of self-reference is used most often by young
boys, so it has a childish connotation that Murakami refines to suggest a perspective that
is idyllic, sincere, and prone to whimsy and fantasy. Boku is idealistic in his attempts to
understand the Town, free his shadow, and receive the Librarians love. However, when
juxtaposed with the more realistic realm of watashi, the End of the World is little more
than an incredibly rich and potent dream. It is one that boku cannot awaken from
unless he can make contact with his alter-ego living within the conscious world. Because
52

boku and watashi are the same person, their search for one another ultimately forms a
nexus point, which is represented both as the ominous Pool in the End of the World and a
brain that is about to be shut down by watashis black box. If boku cannot anchor the
remnants of his fading mind, he will lose all feeling and hope, just like the others living
in the Town.
His stage of awareness occurs over a prolonged sense of time. Although both his
and watashis narratives take place during the same five-day period in real life, for boku
this corresponds to the passing of autumn into winter. When he is first separated from his
shadow by the Gatekeeper, his shadow says, Its wrong, I tell you. Theres something
wrong with this place (63). Yet boku believes that this condition is only temporary, not
forever (ibid.) Such is his state of ignoranceuntil he meets the Librarian, when he
realizes that her face comes almost as a reminiscenceI can feel some deep layer of my
consciousness lifting toward the surface (41). When the young woman teaches him how
to read dreams from old beast skulls, he thinks, I am overcome with a strong sense of
dj vu. Have I seen this skull before? (60). His nightly efforts at his new task bring
him closer to the Librarian, but he is also compelled to search for a way out of the Town
and bring his shadow with him. Yet the Gatekeeper senses bokus plans from the
beginning. Pointing out the Wall with unabashed pride, the Gatekeeper advises him,
You have to endureThis is the End of the World (109).
The awareness stage has alerted both narrators of something beyond their
immediate understanding, and they have fastened upon a female character to guide them
further. The encouragement phase takes them through the main action of the novel,
where important revelations provide greater incentives to progress to their respective
53

destinies. The hard-boiled watashi finds himself the target of both information
organizations, and he can no longer trust either. The surprise appearance of two rival
Semiotecs, whom he calls J unior and Big Boy, begins an intense confrontation in
which hestruggles to counter with his wits; but unlike bokus defiant discussion with the
black-suited secretary in A Wild Sheep Chase, watashi is outmatched by J uniors cunning
and Big Boys muscle. Wary of their intentions, hewants more information from them
than he will give in return, and his attempts to toy with them are thwarted when they
demonstrate their physical and psychological dominance. Although watashis calmly
self-reflective response to the physical dangerplaces Big Boy and J unior in a line of
noir thugs reminiscent, for example, of Moose Malloy in Chandlers Farewell, My
Lovely, he soon finds that neither he nor his possessions will survive the encounter
unscathed (Hantke 9).
By fleeing into the subterranean city sewers with the Professors granddaughter,
he not only strives to protect his black box, but also to demand that the Professor explain
to him what is it you were trying to do? What did you do? What was the result? And
where does that leave me? (253). The Professor awaits them in the inner sanctum of the
underground catacombs, so watashis proactive movement through the darkness is a
symbol of his subconscious journey. The further they delve, the more intense the danger
becomes, and the closer watashi draws to bokus realm. Reflecting this gradual
transformation, their odyssey begins to feel nearly as dreamlike as bokus experiences in
the End of the World. Watashi imagines the conscious world above as he moves along
his murky path, half-pushed and half-dragged by his young female companion. The
further we traveled in the darkness, the more I began to feel estranged from my body, he
54

says. I couldnt see it, and after a while, you start to think the body is nothing but a
hypothetical construct (211). This feeling of physical separation foreshadows watashis
ultimate removal from his body and integration into the hidden side of his Self; in The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the protagonist will learn how to take control of this experience.
The real danger lies in watashis conscious mind fading away too soon, for although he
feels the urge to look up at the sky, there is no way to liberate his body from their
frantic descent (216). This predicament mirrors that of boku, who is trapped within the
walls of the Town and is in danger of losing his identity forever once his shadow dies. A
random series of images and sounds begin to float through watashis mind as his own
memories and identity fade, and, half-dreaming, he imagines his footsteps sounding like
Finnish; without warning the sounds transform into a Faustian scene in which A Farmer
met the aged Devil on the road (217).
Although Murakami is clearly having fun with the sheer absurdity of watashis
unanchored mind, this scene is reminiscent of bokus severing from his shadow by the
cruel Gatekeeper. Once separated, the body and shadow cannot be rejoined. Similarly,
watashi is beginning to lose his shadowironically in the shadowy depths of the Tokyo
sewers. The granddaughter, however, displays her ability to save him in time:
Something struck my cheek. Something flat, fleshy, not too hard. But what? I
tried to think, and it struck my cheek again. I raised my hand to brush it away, to
no avail. An unpleasant glare was swimming in my face. I opened my eyes,
which until then I hadnt even noticed were closed. It was her flashlight on me,
her hand slapping me. (Hard-Boiled Wonderland 218)

Her intervention is part of the very active, comic, positive characteristics that
Murakami has attributed to females based within the realistic world. Watashi is
dependent on these traits, in the same manner that the protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase
55

relied on the powers of his psychic girlfriend to choose the Dolphin Hotel and locate the
Rats distant abode. Watashis librarian girlfriend keeps him centered on his conscious
world, thus linking him to the only reality he knows: that of the literal, waking world.
The granddaughter, like Virgil guiding Dante through the three realms of the afterlife,
prepares watashi for his inevitable migration to his subconscious. When watashis mind
wanders too far off track, she pulls him back to his senses until the Professor can
bequeath his knowledge about the world that awaits him.
However, the granddaughters protective powers are limited to the underground.
She frequently asks him to describe the normal world in which he lives and works. She is
obsessed with sex, despite her inexperience. Yet watashi cannot explore these areas with
her, neither consciously nor subconsciously, and so his relationship with her cannot
progress beyond the personal level as represented in the table on page 46. This is not
only because she is 17 and he is sexually involved with the librarian, but also because of
a strong sense that both women are so integrated in their own environments that they
could be polar opposites of each other. The librarian has access to books and cerebral
knowledge, and the granddaughter possesses physical abilities such as horseback riding,
mountain climbing, and spelunking. The granddaughter demonstrates surprising skills in
the subterranean dark, and she leads watashi straight into the dreaded INKling lair in
order to secure their escape route.
Her weakness is the world above, which confuses and frightens her; she loses her
way trying to meet watashi at a coffee shop. She would be his ideal companion only in a
world removed from waking reality, and she suggests to him that they remain together.
First she offers to take him with her to Greece, and then, close to the end of the novel, she
56

flirtatiously squeezes watashis wrist and makes an even more compelling suggestion:
Know what Im thinking? Im thinking it would be wonderful if I could follow you
into that world where youre going (304). It would seem fitting if she were able to
follow watashi to the End of the World, as her ability to navigate the black underground
suggests her familiarity with the subconscious mind. Yet watashis noncommittal
response implies that her role is already reserved by another: bokus Librarian, who will
become the true love interest of both narrators, once they are unified.
In the End of the World, it becomes clear that a man without his shadow can
substitute his loss with only one thing: the love of another. This is bokus stage of
encouragement, in which he falls in love with the Librarian, who is the doppelganger of
watashis girlfriend. Yet his priorities are divided. His shadow has pleaded boku to draw
up a map of their environs to find a weakness in the Wall so that they can escape, for the
veneer of peace and happiness that the Town promotes is due to an utter lack of mind
in all its people. Boku completes the map-making mission but day by day feels less
certain that escape is possible or even desirable. His shadow, in the throes of death due
to the severity of the winter and its separation from bokus body, explains to him:
the absence of fighting or hatred or desire [in the Town] also means the
opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there
is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the
despair of loss, there is no hope. [] Love is a state of mind, but [the Librarian]
has no mind for it. People without a mind are phantoms. (Hard-Boiled
Wonderland 334)

This description recalls the Rats words about his short-term possession by the evil sheep;
the sheep turns its human hosts into virtual phantoms, just like those who have been
robbed of their shadows or, as will be seen in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, of their core
identities. His shadows desperate plea temporarily renews bokus dedication to his
57

mission; he determines to free his shadow and flee via the Pool, whose powerful
undertow serves as their only hope as a route to the outside.
These plans would seem to be the logical response to bokus understanding of the
Towns nature, but his shadow has receded too much from his active thoughts. Its
connection with his original identity has faded away, to be replaced gradually by the
Librarian, with whom boku associates his future. It is telling that boku begins his
narrative only after his bond with his shadow has been severed; at the moment when the
Gatekeeper breaks their natural bond, a psychological and spiritual rift opens as well. He
starts to drift away from his anchored identitysignified by his shadowjust as his
shadow loses its physical stamina and ability to outlast the coming winter. With the
knowledge that an irreplaceable piece of himself is gone, boku is motivated to seek out
someone to take his shadows place. The Gatekeeper is fearsome and cruel, the Colonel
is kind yet complacent, and the Caretaker is something of a forlorn outcast. None of
these townspeople have minds and are hence focused upon their only designated task.
This is also true of the Librarian: I have a mind and she does not, boku says to the
Colonel. Love her as I might, the vessel will remain empty (169). Despite this
realization, boku believes that her mind can be restored and she may love him in return.
Rather than escape with his shadow or let his shadow die so that he is trapped forever,
boku decides upon a compromise: freeing his shadow, finding the Librarians mind, and
remaining with her in the End of the World. It is a heroic goal, one which boku in the
previous novel could never have imagined, for it requires the selfless baring of ones
heart for the sake of another. This refined sense of purpose is the core theme of The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which will be explored in the next chapter.
58

Having accompanied the granddaughter through the undergrounds chilling
darkness, rushing floods, precipitous cliffs, killer leeches, and savage INKlings, watashi
completes the encouragement stage of his psychological process by meeting the Professor
for the second time. His identification phase begins when the Professor explains in
detail the reality of the world locked inside watashis head. He learns that the unicorn
skull was a red herringthe Professor had made it up on a phrenological whim (270)
to distract the marauding Semiotecs and to help watashi draw connections to his
subconscious. The Professor admits that the skull was modeled after a visualized image
(270) that arose from within the End of the World, but he says that watashi has already
begun constructing mental bridges in his conscious mind to link to these implanted
memories:
You may have experienced it as a memory, but that was an artificial bridge of
your own makin. You see, quite naturally there are going tbe gaps between your
own identity and my edited input consciousness. So you, in order tjustify your
own existence, have laid down bridges across those gaps. (Hard-Boiled
Wonderland 265)

These bridges exist due to bokus actions within watashis subconscious. For the first
time watashi understands the nature of the subtle cluespaperclips, libraries, unicorns
that his alter-ego has been unknowingly leaving behind. Once this revelation comes to
him, his world begins to exert subtle influence on bokus in return. Hard-Boiled
Wonderland never declares which of these realms is more real; as Strecher observes,
we are confronted with the suggestion that the so-called fantasy world is in fact not so
divorced as we might like to imagine from the real one (44). Although boku and
watashi move independently of one another at first, their merging completes the Self and
becomes their true reality.
59

As the Professor makes his revelations, watashis hard-boiled nature is in full
force. It is similar to that of the protagonist in A Wild Sheep Chase, but it can be argued
that watashi requires these personality traits for survival in his harsh world. Brought
about by what the Professor muses could be his childhood trauma, misguided upbringin,
over-objectified ego, guilt, they have enabled watashi to bolster his emotional shell, thus
giving his subconscious mind the ability to create and maintain a coherent fantasy world
unhindered by the external bombardment of reality (268). As the Professor explains,
Its as if you descended to the elephant factory floor beneath your consciousness and
built an elephant with your own hands. Without you even knowin! (268). The elephant,
as an inscrutable master of memory, represents bokus efforts to make sense of the
artificial reality that the Professor had created (Rubin 119). Therefore, the odd sense of
dj vu that watashi experiences in his awareness stage are not true memories, but merely
brief points of contact between his conscious and subconscious selves. Murakamis
rationale for their separation, according to Rubin, is the inability of the individual to
know his own inner mind (118).
Watashi comes to this realization when the Professor explains that there is no way
to prevent his black box, or core identity, from fusing itself permanently to his brain,
essentially killing him but shifting his actual consciousness into the End of the World.
His psychological quest now at a dead-end, watashi identifies the futility of chasing after
his J ungian stranger on his own. Instead, he is told that the stranger will come to him
or, more accurately, he will be automatically thrust into the strangers world. The
Professor attempts to assuage the damage, but watashi cannot help but express his anger
and sense of betrayal:
60

As far as I can see, the responsibility for all this is one hundred percent yours.
You started it, you developed it, you dragged me into it. Wiring quack circuitry
into peoples headsputting the Semiotecs on my tail, luring me down into this
hell hole, and now youre snuffing my world! This is worse than a horror movie!
Who the fuck do you think you are? I dont care what you think. Get me back
the way I was. (Hard-Boiled Wonderland 274)

Watashi is forced to live what short time he has left under the inflexibility of these
regrettable consequences, and from this point on he must come to terms with his twist of
fate. His struggle to resist the inevitable merging of consciousnesses serves as the
novels moral fantasy, which Strecher describes as being to explicate the mysterious,
and to thwart death (Beyond 39). This fate provides a more conclusive ending than
the previous novel, as the self-realization that both boku and watashi are seeking,
contained within the nexus of their conscious and subconscious worlds, is more tangibly
attainable even though both are forced to make unhappy sacrifices.
The identification stage of bokus journey, like watashis, represents his last
opportunity to make a decision that could affect the final, inevitable outcome.
Determined to allow the Librarian to feel and reciprocate his love, he tells her,
Something in you must still be in touch with your mind! Although it is locked tightly
and cannot get out (351). He achieves his breakthrough when the Caretaker gives him
an old accordion; those lacking minds have no means to understand the instruments
purpose. Yet boku, in his desire to find his mental link to the world beyond the Wall,
uses the accordion to recall the lost notes and chords of an old song (Danny Boy). He
rediscovers music, and as a result:
The whole Town lives and breathes in the music I play. The streets shift their
weight with my every move. The Wall stretches and flexes as if my own flesh
and skin. I repeat the song several times, then set the accordion down on the floor,
lean back, and close my eyes. Everything here is a part of methe Wall and Gate
and Woods and River and Pool. It is all my self. (Hard-Boiled Wonderland 369)
61


This psychological breakthrough is comparable to the Professors revelations to watashi,
but bokus epiphany is much more profound because of his direct influence upon his
destiny. The identification of his true reality enables him to prepare for the final step of
his psychological quest. Boku uses this knowledge to undertake the noble task of finding
the Librarians mind by piecing it together strand by strand. Having accomplished this,
he knows he cannot abandon her with his shadowbut he also cannot allow his shadow
to perish. His sense of sacrifice, therefore, extends to both of his profound
relationships. Although the Librarian has replaced his shadow as bokus anchor to his
chosen world, his dedication to saving both characters is a portent to The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle, in which Murakami will identify what is most significant in the J ungian quest
for the Self.
For watashi, the fulfillment of his search for the J ungian stranger has been placed
on automatic. He has no control over it, but at least he has fair warning of the imminent
transformation. The Professors intimate knowledge of watashis mind due to his
experiments might suggest that the relationship between the two men would become a
profound oneyet because of the Professors direct complicity in watashis unfortunate
fate and his inability to correct it, watashi cannot forgive him for such transgressions.
The Professor admits his carelessness, which was never meant as malevolence, but he is
responsible for watashis physical deathor, more accurately, not death but a
transposition (341). Watashis consolation is that his life can resume in the End of the
World, albeit in that dreamlike environment. Therefore, he returns to the world above
as if awakening from a dreamand reunites with his librarian girlfriend. The
62

granddaughters importance declines as soon as they emerge from the darkness; just like
the girlfriend in A Wild Sheep Chase, her existence is largely reduced to an afterthought.
Perhaps because of his understanding that everything will all be there, or
because he lacks the ability to move beyond his emotional shell, watashi does not inform
his girlfriend of his pending fate (274). Addressing the latter case, one critic suggests
that contemporary man is now capable only of relationships with passive objects
(Kuroko Kazuo, qtd. in Strecher, Magical Realism 285). This observation has merit
when describing someone who has lost command of his destinylike watashibut
bokus case is different. Boku openly addresses his objectives to the Librarian because he
believes that he has some control over their collective fate; watashi, on the other hand,
has given up and accepted his outcome.
Boku learns that his mind is something he possesses and can retain despite the
absence of his shadow. He finds he can even restore the Librarians mind, even though
she had lost it long ago. Bringing his shadow to the Pool, he urges it to leave the End of
the World without him: This is my world. The Wall is here to hold me in, the River
flows through me, the smoke is me burning. I must know why (399). His realization of
the truththat the Town is merely a construction of watashis mindbrings him to the
verge of fulfilling his psychological journey. His new self-awareness penetrates to the
real world beyond, where watashi resides. Despite his shadows statement that boku
will never know the clarity of distance without me (399), bokus decision to stay
behind is final. He is not aware that the convergence of watashis mind with bokus
world means that boku, in his current state, will be erased; he is losing one set of
memories and identity (his shadow) to replace it with another (watashi). The merging of
63

worlds marks the completion of the Self, yet the novel ends before either of the narrators
make direct contact with the other. Not until The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle will we see in
concrete terms an achievement of the protagonists quest for his core identity and its
aftermath. However, true enlightenment (and its association with supreme knowledge
and bliss) remains elusive in Murakami. Although the conscious and subconscious
worlds that make up watashis brain are eventually rejoined together, what effect this
produces can only be surmised.
Critical interpretation suggests a general consensus that, once again, neither
watashi nor boku achieve lasting individuation in Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Referring to
the novels ending, Philip Gabriel, one of Murakamis English translators, writes, the
narrator wind[s] up trapped in the walled-in world of his unconscious, his shadow
attempting an escape from this seemingly idyllic, yet dystopic realm (156). This
entrapment may be true from the perspective of his shadow, but not necessarily from that
of boku, since he has learned that it is possible to make small changes for the better in
this world. Another critic darkly contends that, When the last barriers between ego self
and the dream self dissolve, with the aid of that clever cybernetic hardware, Words and
Worlds end (Porush 38). Yet another claims that watashi is stranded inside his
subconscious (Keller 55). Strecher sums up the conclusion in more general terms by
distinguishing Murakami protagonists between those who are locked within their own
barriers and those who possess the ability to open themselves to other people:
Murakami's protagonists try to solve this dilemma first by seeking the Other
within themselves, with predictably unsatisfactory results, and more recently seek
a similar solution through their efforts to reach out to others. All the while such
attempts are hindered by a social system that encourages people to accept an
identity bestowed through participation in the consumerist economic utopia of late
64

twentieth-century J apan, rather than by seeking something unique within
themselves. (Strecher, Magical Realism 295)

While watashi serves as the former, selfish style of narrator, boku provides a glimpse of a
Murakami protagonists potential to commit himself to others. Yet because boku must
share his Self with watashi, his achievement is incomplete. In The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle, the more recent form of Murakami protagonist to which Strecher alludes
has an entire novel to himself.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World demonstrates a clear
progression from A Wild Sheep Chase regarding the protagonists ultimate ability to
identify himself and bring his two disparate selves fully together. He has grown from the
self-interested, solitary hero who must be pushed into action by others (i.e. the secretary
and his psychic girlfriend) to one whose aspirations entail a greater measure of personal
sacrifice and volition (i.e. watashis wounded stomach and nightmarish trek through the
sewers as well as bokus reassembly of the Librarians mind and rescue of his shadow).
While the hidden side of the protagonists self was only revealed in the climax of A Wild
Sheep Chase, in Hard-Boiled Wonderland Murakami explores both sides, maintaining
that relationships with other characters (especially women) are crucial to self-realization.
Thus joined, it can be presumed (though not proven) that boku and watashi enjoy some
measure of accomplishment, one that lasts far longer than the first bokus brief
conversation with the Rat. Hard-Boiled Wonderland ends with the potential of
permanent happiness, in which watashi resumes bokus relationship with the Librarian,
who becomes his substitute for the real librarian he had left behind. While love may
only be peripheral to the novels themes, it does not make a bad consolation prize. The
J ungian stranger, for the moment, is appeased. In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, we will
65

see how Murakamis protagonist, finally receiving both a name and a stronger sense of
identity, will continue the search for his subconscious mind and attain greater, more
demonstrable success. The sacrifices he makes will bring him closer not only to his own
self, but also to another woman character: his wife.

66

Chapter Three

Achieving a New Breakthrough: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Nejimaki-dori
Kuronikuru)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle marks a major shift in the identity of the Murakami
protagonist, as he moves beyond the borders of his own self and strives to save another,
freeing himself in the process. While he is not entirely heroic, he has developed beyond
the selfish, impassive personality of boku in A Wild Sheep Chase. He has also come to
possess a broader sense of perception and feeling than the watashi/boku combination of
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is thus
the novel in which the traditional Murakami protagonist breaks the bonds constricting his
Self and finds a new sense of purpose; as Rubin writes, boku finally abandons his stance
of cool detachment to embrace commitment (Music of Words 205). Whereas
Murakamis earlier works present the reader with a comfortable yet mindless and
antievolutionary world in which the barriers to communication and self-knowledge are
too overwhelming, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the protagonists next step to
confronting the J ungian stranger and thereby unifying his Self (Murakami Fuminobu
139).
Without a doubt, due to the protagonists expanded sensitivity and consciousness,
Wind-Up Bird depicts his most successful quest among the three novels discussed. The
aloof and cynical narrator of A Wild Sheep Chase rebels against authority and neglects
those who need him (such as his business partner) or try to help him (such as his psychic
girlfriend) when he feels they are no longer relevant to his goals. The split-mind of
watashi in Hard-Boiled Wonderland is torn between two conflicting desires: his
subconscious love of the Librarian and his conscious need to preserve his core identity.
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The protagonist of Wind-Up Bird, however, is more mature, empathetic, and determined;
his triumph in breaking through to his subconscious and freeing his wife from the
manipulation of her brother requires greater sacrifice than any Murakami novel has
shown thus far. The number of important charactersas always, particularly female
coming to his aid along the way is even greater than before. Once again, they guide him
through the four key phases of his psychological processbut this time his journey
moves along a circular path that leaves lasting, tangible benefits in his life. The stages
are broken down, once more, as:
(1) Awareness: The influence of psychic or otherwise intuitive characters warn and
guide the protagonist (often in cryptic fashion) towards an understanding of the
dual conscious-subconscious nature of reality;
(2) Encouragement: After hearing one mans tragic yet powerful story, the
protagonist gains confidence that he can achieve his own glimpse of the
subconscious and its resident J ungian stranger;
(3) Identification: He discovers a physical device that will serve as a gateway to his
subconscious and allow his ambitious spiritual journey to take place; and finally
(4) Fulfillment: His encounter with the J ungian stranger in his subconscious causes a
major change in the physical world, thus enabling him to resume his status as a
normal man and husband who no longer possesses special powers.
In this way, the circle prescribed by his Self is accomplished.
5
While this new and
improved boku still receives more assistance for his quest than he gives in return, his
ultimate achievement is not only for his own benefit. This is another departure from the

5
As quoted in the introduction, J ung writes, The self is not only the centre, but also the whole
circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious (qtd. in Colman 157, my emphasis).
68

other two novels, as will be shown in the following plot synopsis. The protagonists new
altruism enables him to counteract the sociological deficit incurred by his predecessors.
6

For the first time, the protagonist has a name. Toru Okada is an unemployed
Tokyo suburbanite who spends his days at domestic leisure while his wife, Kumiko,
works long hours. One morning, while cooking, he is interrupted by the phone call of an
oddly familiar yet unknown woman. Pleading for ten minutes of his time, she soon turns
the conversation sexually obscene, and he hangs up. Pressed by his increasingly distant
wife to look for their missing cat, Toru makes a circuit through his quiet neighborhood
and meets May Kasahara, a teenage outcast possessing a morbid fascination with death.
He is later approached by a psychic named Malta Kano, who offers cryptic information
about the lost cat. When Kumiko never returns from work, both Malta and her sister
Creta provide their guidance. Creta tells Toru about her life of never-ending pain, which
led her to attempted suicide, prostitution, and an encounter with his malevolent brother-
in-law, Noboru Noboru Wataya, who both physically and psychologically defiled (41)
her. Now a psychic prostitute of the mind (212), Creta enters Torus dreams and
causes him to believe that Kumiko has been spirited away by her brother and is losing her
identity. His suspicions intensify his identification of Noboru Wataya as his mortal
enemy.
However, Toru lacks a plan to bring Kumiko back, and the psychological
assistance he receives from May Kasahara and the two sisters is worthless without a
means to take action. His breakthrough comes when he meets Lieutenant Mamiya, an
elderly veteran haunted by memories of extreme suffering during his years as a soldier in

6
The heroism of boku of Hard-Boiled Wonderland may be the exception, but he is only one half of the
narrative duo.
69

J apans ill-fated Manchurian campaign and later as a prisoner of war. Lt. Mamiya
describes a life-changing experience he had at the bottom of a well in the middle of the
Mongolian desert. It is this story that prompts Toru to believe that he needs a place to
focus on his thoughts. He goes to the lot of a nearby abandoned house (the same place
where he met May Kasahara), uncovers the lid of its deep dry well, and climbs to the
bottom. Submerged in total darkness and with little food or water, he opens a portal to
his subconscious, which is depicted as a dreamlike hotel with winding corridors. He
realizes that this unknown side of his dual Self holds the key to locating and rescuing
Kumiko. When he emerges from the well days later, he discovers a dark blue mark on
his face: a symbol of his passage into the subconscious realm.
May Kasahara is the first to react to this mark, but soon she retreats to a remote
region of J apan; the series of letters she sends him have no return address. Torus mark
then draws the attention of the wealthy Nutmeg Akasaka, whose father sported a similar
one before his death on a Manchurian battlefield. Under her employment, Toru uses his
newfound powers to restore the lost and shattered identities of women seeking his
services. Nutmeg and her mute son Cinnamon take control of the abandoned house and
give Toru daily access to the special well, which he continues to use as a gateway to his
subconscious in his quest for Kumiko. Noboru Wataya, whose political power and
influence have been rising, allows Toru to hold a computer chat with Kumikobut this
is only his cunning way to gain information about the Akasakas business and their secret
well. Via his brief electronic exchange, Toru confirms his suspicions about Kumikos
desperate situation, so he refuses to believe that her resistance to his rescue attempts is of
her own volition. He tries many times to reach her through his subconscious, and at long
70

last he penetrates her dark hotel room and insists he has finally recognized her as the
mysterious telephone woman. Noboru Wataya enters the room, wielding a knife, and
Toru kills him with a baseball bat. At the same time, the real Noboru Wataya collapses
from a cerebral aneurysm, and some time later the vengeful Kumiko is arrested for
murdering him in his hospital bed. The novel concludes with Torus reunion with May
Kasahara, where he explains his hopeful plan to wait for Kumiko to recover her original
identity and return home.
The fact that Wind-Up Bird is the first Murakami novel to use personal names for
both the protagonist and most of the other characters is further testament to its
psychological advancement. It is the culmination of the protagonists worldview that
begins with the cool and detached boku in A Wild Sheep Chase and progresses to the
hard-boiled watashi and compassionate boku in Hard Boiled Wonderland. These
earlier protagonists keep others at a subjective distance; although their levels of empathy
vary, they imply that others are expendable and interchangeable by referring to them with
such names as the Sheep Man, the Rat, the man in black, my girlfriend, the
Gatekeeper, the Librarian, and the Professor. With Wind-Up Bird, however, the use
of personal names helps the identity of the protagonist and his supporting characters
become stable and individualized, a quality that cannot be conveyed by common nouns
(Seats 204).
Names are also J ungian symbols, functioning as interconnecting links between
the conscious and the collective unconscious, as they bring into consciousness in
representable form the otherwise unknowable archetypes (Shelburne 43). These
archetypes were never represented so clearly in the previous two novels. Torus name
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means passing through to refer to his new-found ability to traverse the wall of his
subconscious, which is symbolized by the wells stone wall. At best, this feat is
accomplished by his predecessors only at the climax of the other novels, and with more
effort and less elegance. Kumikos name, as Rubin explains, has overtones of neatly
bundling things together, arranging things, or, from another kumu, to draw water from a
well (208). Noboru Watayas first name pertains to climbing or ascending, which
corresponds to his rapid rise to political power. Other characters, notably the sisters
Malta and Creta Kano and the mother-son duo Nutmeg and Cinnamon Akasaka, use
aliases. Such created identities either relate to the characters sense of purpose or ensure
their public anonymity, yet as proper names they must be seen as [Murakamis] attempt
to combat exchangeability and hold fast [their] uniqueness (Cassegard 88). This quality
ensures that names, like Torus well, are also potential passageways to the subconscious.
They have a wider unconscious aspect that is never precisely defined or fully
explainedAs the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp
of reason (J ung, Man and His Symbols 4).
Without the support and motivation of the other characters, however, the
associations to the wider unconscious aspect that proper names provide would be
wasted. Like his counterparts, Toru is guided towards his core identity via a number of
different people. They act as collective enablers for Toru to bring himself into direct
contact with [Kumikos] hidden, unrecognizable core consciousness, but to reach her
consciousness he must first navigate through the dim, haunted corridorsrepresented as
an empty, sprawling hotelof his own (Strecher, Magical Realism 89). The
abruptness of her vanishing and his decision to find her motivates him not only to
72

collaborate with those who offer him clues, but also to reveal his feelings far more openly
than ever before. As always, women play the strongest, most pivotal roles and take
special pains to help him to his goal. Torus progress, which I will once again examine in
terms of the four-step psychological process, is dependent upon the collective
information and support they provide. With only one exception, these women fade from
the narrative when their work is doneanother Murakami characteristic.
7

The paranormal realm of Wind-Up Bird is the most tangible of the three novels.
Even in their physical absence, certain female characterslike Creta Kano, May
Kasahara, and especially Kumikomaintain a strong psychological connection with the
protagonist. His empowered sense of commitment is thus a product of Wind-Up Birds
stronger sense of the supernatural. Torus interaction with that hidden world gives him
the determination to push onward not only for himself but also, most importantly, for
Kumiko. Instead of accepting loneliness as [his] sad but also sentimentally sweet fate
like his counterparts, he decides to fight (Cassegard 83). His willingness to step beyond
the bounds of himself allows both his personal and profound connections with other
characters to be broader and more penetrating than ever before. To help demonstrate this,
I have added a new column to the relationship table featured in Chapters 1 and 2. Once
again, to illustrate the importance of the female characters, their names are displayed in
boldface:
Relationship
Type
A Wild
Sheep Chase
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and
the End of the World
The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle
boku watashi
The Basic The Rats ex- The J unior and Big Torus uncle

7
In A Wild Sheep Chase, the most notable disappearance is bokus girlfriend. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland,
watashis librarian girlfriend vanishes for the middle part of the novel, and the professors granddaughter
is missing when he waits for her at the caf. In the end, however, it is he who leaves her behind.
73

Relationship
Type
A Wild
Sheep Chase
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and
the End of the World
The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle
boku watashi
girlfriend
black-suited
secretary
the Sheep
Professor
Caretaker Boy Realtor
Mr. Honda
Ushikawa
The Personal J , the bar-
owner
bokus
business
partner
bokus ex-
wife
owner of the
Dolphin
Hotel
The Colonel
The
Gatekeeper
The Professor
The
Professors
granddaughter
Lieutenant Mamiya
Malta Kano
Cinnamon Akasaka
The Profound the limousine
chauffeur
bokus
girlfriend
The
Librarian
bokus
shadow
Librarian
girlfriend
May Kasahara
Creta Kano
Nutmeg Akasaka

The
Subconscious
the Sheep
Man/The Rat
watashi (his
outer self)
boku (his inner
self)
Kumiko/the
Telephone Woman
Noboru Wataya

The subconscious relationships displayed in the tablethe protagonists suicidal
friend the Rat, the alternate side of his Self, and his wife Kumikolie at the very end of
his psychological journeys. As always, the basic, personal, and profound relationships
act as enablers for the subconscious ones.

However, in Wind-Up Bird, the specific
purpose of the four categories has again changed; Torus open and honest nature is very
different from the social aspects of his counterparts. In A Wild Sheep Chase, bokus
hierarchal relationships were important to demonstrate how difficult it was for anyone but
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his long-departed friend to penetrate his tough exterior, and in Hard-Boiled Wonderland
the table depicted how other characters made the protagonists split selves gradually
aware of one another as their worlds converged. While both previous novels depict the
protagonists penetration to the other side of his Self, Wind-Up Bird offers the most
dramatic example of his ability to affect direct change upon one world via the other.
8
His
ability is enabled partially by his willingness to listenand the novel is full of characters
telling him their stories. More honest and receptive almost from the start, he no longer
needs to rank his relationships as he commits himself to his goal. Despite his greater
impartiality, some characters nonetheless have more influence than others. The deeper
the relationship, as presented in the table, the more Toru gains. By embracing not only
his commitment to Kumiko but also the stories and assistance of others, he transcends his
Self and becomes a better friend, husband, and person.
This quality, once again, makes Wind-Up Bird the most optimistic of the three
novels. Torus empathy brings his reality from physical to subconscious to physical
again, thus denoting wholeness. Unlike boku in A Wild Sheep Chase, Torus return to
normalcy does not leave him isolated. He resumes his unremarkable life with no further
need of sacrifice, which is a large contrast to the losses that both boku and watashi incur
in Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Although Torus four-step psychological process follows
the same general route as the previous protagonists, his quest reveals a circular nature
that is demonstrated most notably via the return of Kumiko to the conscious, physical
world. The appearance of his mysterious facial mark after his first successful passing
through to his subconscious and its later disappearance after he completes his mission is

8
It is true that boku of A Wild Sheep Chase learns how to destroy the sheep via his subconscious interaction
with the Rat, but the novels pessimistic ending effectively negates any sense of real triumph. This is
particularly true due to the resurgence of dark and evil forces in the next two novels.
75

another indication of his rounded path. Yet his progress could not exist without the help
of other characters. By sequentially providing awareness, encouragement, identification,
and fulfillment of Torus fight for Kumikos return, they play a critical role throughout
the phases in awakening his mind towards his ultimate confrontation with Kumiko and
Noboru Wataya in the dreamlike hotel. As I move through each of them, I will also
touch upon the significance of Torus relationships with the major characters from the
table on pages 72-73 and identify those who enable the steps of his journey. In this way,
his relationships are intricately connected to his J ungian psychological process.
The awareness phase of Wind-Up Bird, unlike that in the previous novels, is the
most complicated of the four. It introduces several characters, two of whom (the
telephone woman/Kumiko and May Kasahara) maintain their influence until the novels
conclusion. Yet it all begins with Mr. Honda. Toru recalls how, early in their marriage,
he and Kumiko were ordered by her family to visit the old man, a veteran of the
Nomonhan Incident of 1939, to receive his teaching (53). Mr. Honda had been a
member of the J apanese army that was annihilated by the Soviets during a bloody, four-
month battle in the vast border region between Manchuria and Mongolia. J apans final
stand in this bleak location brought a disastrous end to its attempt to extend its forces
westward through China and Russia, as nearly 45,000 J apanese were killed (Neeno,
Nomonhan). Mr. Honda survived due to his special precognitive abilities, but the
tremendous waste of human life for no gain weighed heavily on J apan in the ensuing
years. Toru explores this hidden repository of guilt and horror-ridden memories as his
own extraordinary powers take form. Despite his claim that their visits with Mr. Honda
76

were not prompted by a belief on our part in his spiritual powers, the old mans
enigmatic words of warning are remarkably prescient (49):
The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when youre supposed to go up and
down when youre supposed to go down. When youre supposed to go up, find
the highest tower and climb to the top. When youre supposed to go down, find
the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When theres no flow, stay still. If
you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is
darkness. (Wind-Up Bird 51)

This piece of advice foretells Torus heeding of the flow marked by the unseen wind-
up birds unique call. This strange creature has the power to wind the spring of our
quiet little world, thus [keeping] time flowing forward, creating temporal distance
between past and present (9; Strecher, Readers Guide 61-62). Those who can perceive
the wind-up birds resonant call have latent paranormal gifts such as precognition,
clairvoyance, or the ability to seek out and isolate the core identities of others as actual
physical entities. Toru comes to possess this final ability after his descent into the well
after perceiving the right time to go down, as Mr. Honda predicts.
Yet Toru admits that, at the time, he and Kumiko had attributed Mr. Hondas
mystic warnings and war stories as fairy tales and hence eventually forgot them, only
to dredge them up again years later as their relevance becomes clear (53). By this time,
in the novels present period, his life has begun to take a downward turn: he is jobless,
the cat is missing, and his wife has grown more distant and volatile. As the relationship
table indicates, due to his late awareness, Torus association with Mr. Honda has never
broken out of the basic category. It takes the collective influence of four different women
as well as an encounter with Mr. Hondas old war colleague Lt. Mamiya to push him
closer to the conviction that only by focusing on his inner Self will he make sense of the
external world.
77

The appearance of these women, all somehow connected to Torus troubling
situation, is what convinces him that Mr. Hondas powers were real and that it is possible
to tap into the subconscious realm. Notably, the unnamed telephone woman holds the
greatest secret. Her plea for his time and attention violates Torus quiet little world, thus
extending his awareness stage from his meetings with Mr. Honda into the present day.
Her initial tool for alerting him is the telephone, which is merely one more version of
the tunnel that always separates the internal and external minds of the Murakami
protagonist (Strecher, Magical Realism 288). When Kumiko vanishes and Toru
ventures into room 208 of the subconscious hotel, it dawns on him that this woman is
actually Kumiko herself. From the dimness, she pleads:
Toru Okada, I want you to discover my name. But no: you dont have to
discover it. You know it already. All you have to do is remember it. If you can
find my name, then I can get out of here. [] You dont have time to stay lost.
Every day you fail to find it, Kumiko Okada moves that much farther away from
you. (Wind-Up Bird 246)

The telephone woman/Kumiko utilizes the voice of the J ungian stranger, trying to
establish a bridge to Torus conscious mind from within by asking him to realize her
name (and identity) by giving it physical form. This is the essence of Torus quest, and it
resembles the manner in which watashis hidden black box tries to link itself to his
consciousness in Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Due to Noboru Watayas brutal removal of
her core identity, Kumiko cannot cross the gap to her husband on her own, and nor can
Toru pinpoint her precise location without the help of others. He draws closer to her both
physically and subconsciously, but in her scrambled state she alternately resists and
beckons him. J ust like boku in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, writes Strecher, the longer she
78

is separated from her black box, the less likely she is to understand the means to
reconnect with it or, for that matter, to care about doing so (Magical Realism 293).
For this reason, Toru must become proactive, aggressive, and even violent in
order to bring her back. His predecessors are too detached from their respective worlds
to feel that their actions have any effect. They only penetrate to their unknown selves
because they have no other choice: boku of A Wild Sheep Chase is menaced by the
Bosss secretary, and the dual narrators of Hard-Boiled Wonderland are motivated by
threats of violence and death as well as the impending obliteration of their worlds.
Torus precarious situation is not a threat to his own livelihood, but on Kumikos. His
mission to free her is based both on his love for hera love he admitsand on his desire
to put an end to the continuum of historical violence of which Noboru Wataya is a
malevolent part. The exchange below comes from his final subconscious encounter with
Kumiko, where he insists that he has finally discovered her name, just as she had
requested:
She released a little sigh in the darkness. Why do you want so badly to bring me
back?
Because I love you, I said. And I know that you love me and want me.
You sound pretty sure of yourself, said Kumikoor Kumikos voice. (Wind-Up
Bird 575)

His identification of Kumiko and profession of love bring about the final transformation
of his connection to his wife. Comparative literature scholar Michael Seats writes,
Bokus relation with Kumiko moves from a highly corporeal to an auditory one,
conducted over the telephoneand then finally, to a disembodied modality: a series of
virtual dialogues conducted via the e-mail format (283). Yet due to the novels
circular nature, in which Kumiko moves from reality to the subconscious and finally back
79

to reality again, their computer chat is not the final stage of their relationship. By
confronting Kumiko in her psychological prison and killing the wordless and faceless
Noboru Wataya, Toru heals her identity and brings her back to the corporeal world. His
final thought as he leaves the hotel of his subconscious is, Ill never come back here
again (587)meaning his powers have been spent. Despite Kumikos liberation,
however, she is not guaranteed to return to normal. This will be discussed at the end of
this chapter.
Chronologically, we have moved from Torus basic-level relationship with Mr.
Honda to his subconscious-level relationship with his wife, which itself has come full-
circle. Yet before he can proceed to the next phase of his journey, Toru meets three other
women who help convince him of his own potential paranormal abilities. May Kasahara
presses Toru into an evolving state of awareness of Kumikos fate and what he must do to
be reunited with her. By introducing him to the well in the abandoned lot and later
trapping him within it, she plays among the most important roles in Wind-Up Bird.
According to Strecher, she has a central, even critical roleby expressing directly much
of what we, the reader, might wish Toru would understand on his own (Readers Guide
27). Like Kumiko, she accompanies Toru through all four stages of his quest with her
astute and blunt observations. She recognizes the heroic and empathetic elements of his
character that neither of the other two protagonists in A Wild Sheep Chase or Hard-Boiled
Wonderland fully possess. May tells him:
Youre falling all over yourself, trying to wrestle with this big whatever-it-is, and
the only reason youre doing it is so you can find Kumiko. [] In a way, you
probably are fighting for a lot of other people at the same time youre fighting for
Kumiko. And thats maybe why you look like an absolute idiot sometimes.
(Wind-Up Bird 324-325)

80

Although she disappears from the narrative midway through, the detailed letters that she
sends to him serve as her way of maintaining her psychological presence. She is also the
first person to be affected by Torus mark; in the same manner as the female clients Toru
meets via Nutmeg Akasaka, May Kasahara kisses his mark and feels a charge of energy
that both fascinates and scares her. As she writes, in one of her letters:
That mark is maybe going to give you something important. But it also must be
robbing you of something. Kind of like a trade-off. And if everybody keeps
taking stuff from you like that, youre going to be worn away until theres nothing
left of you. (Wind-Up Bird 463)

Mays accurate predictions and observations (whether in person or from afar) serve as a
constant stabilizing, validating force for Toru. Her intrinsic understanding of his new
abilities is only matched by that of Nutmeg Akasaka. Her resumption of physical form in
the novels last scene runs parallel to Kumikos return, reestablishing her significance
and helping to close the circle of Torus four-step psychological process.
The Kano sisters are the other two women who motivate Toru in his initial period
of discovery about the dual nature of the Self. Malta Kano first uses her psychic powers
to provide insight on the whereabouts of the missing cat, but this is merely her pretext for
becoming involved in the case of the missing Kumiko as well. Yet because Toru is still
reeling from his newfound solitude, his relationship with Malta does not move beyond
the personal level. It is her sister Creta Kano, however, who takes Toru much more
deeply into his quest. Her invasion of his dreams and her revelation about Noboru
Wataya both serve as jarring events in Torus awakening. From her ordeal with his
brother-in-law, Creta gained the ability to divide myself into a physical self and a
nonphysical self (306), which is what Toru seeks to do in the well. Yet the horrible
manner in which this is done to Creta is a chilling sign of how Kumikos identity is
81

savaged by Noboru Wataya. The dismantling of [Cretas] identitymarks [her]
personal transformationa becoming someone other than herself, and via her tale Toru
understands the severity of his mission (Seats 294). His mind is not focused, however, at
this point. He and Creta have sexual relations and she wears his wifes clothes, both in
his dreams and in reality, only adding to his confusion: Several times the illusion
overtook me that I was doing this with Kumiko, not Creta Kano (313). All the same,
when Creta asks him to travel to Greece with her, Toru gives it serious thoughta
testament to how close their relationship has become. Yet, as is often the case with
female characters in Murakami, Cretas role thereafter becomes negligent, and when she
disappears Toru has already dedicated himself to his wife.
Together, the telephone woman/Kumiko, May Kasahara, and Malta and Creta
Kano continue the role of their female counterparts in the previous novels: to guide boku
closer to the J ungian stranger. Yet none of them can do the actual work for him, and
despite his growing understanding, in the awareness phase he has not yet reached his
feeling of empowerment. His self-appointed task of freeing Kumiko is still almost
insurmountable, and he knows little of how to proceed or whether his efforts are
worthwhile. As discussed in the previous chapters, there is at best only a limited sense of
spiritual and psychological fulfillment in Murakami. The identification of the J ungian
figure is only the discovery of ones personal, relative truth (and is hence not
enlightenment in its pure, spiritual sense). Yet this is the motivation that drives the
Murakami protagonist. Writes book critic Francie Lin, they know there is no absolute
truthbut that does not stop [them] from seeking one (Break on Through). In the
previous two novels, the narrator undergoes severe psychological and emotional tolls as
82

he realizes the shortcomings of his success. In A Wild Sheep Chase, boku unblocks his
mind so as to communicate with the Rat, thus enabling him to destroy the evil sheep and,
by extension, the Bosss secret organization. Yet he accomplishes this only after his
neglected girlfriend disappears, and he becomes as alone and desolate as ever. In Hard-
Boiled Wonderland, the unstoppable fusion of watashi and bokus consciousnesses
results in the physical death of the former and the psychological obliteration of the latter,
even though watashis own consciousness presumably remains intact within bokus world.
Yet, there being no absolute truth, his actual fate is never revealed.
While this psychological ambivalence lingers in Wind-Up Bird, it is reduced. In
the second phase of Torus psychological awakening, that of encouragement, Toru comes
to believe that truth is attainablethat the J ungian stranger will lead him to Kumiko
when he listens to Lieutenant Mamiyas story. It is a detailed personal account of his
experiences as a mapmaker for the J apanese Army during the Nomonhan Incident and its
aftermath half a century ago. The tale is a harrowing one told over several chapters in
both conversation and letter form, and its impact on Toru is substantial. Lt. Mamiya
explains that after witnessing the horrifying spectacle of one of his companions being
skinned alive by Mongolian soldiers, he is beaten and thrown naked into a deep well in
the middle of the desert, left to die alone. However, during his time in this dark pit, he
experiences a revelation that will dwell within him for the rest of his regretful, empty life.
Two days in a row, for just a few brief seconds, Lt. Mamiya is bathed in a ray of light
when the sun reaches its highest point in the skyand then something miraculous
happens:
I was able to descend directly into a place that might be called the very core of my
own consciousness. In any case, I saw the shape of something there. J ust
83

imagine: Everything around me is bathed in light. I am in the very center of a
flood of light. My eyes can see nothing. I am simply enveloped in light. But
something begins to appear there. In the midst of my momentary blindness,
something is trying to take shape. Some thing. Some thing that possesses life.
Like the shadow in a solar eclipse, it begins to emerge, black, in the light. But I
can never quite make out its form. It is trying to come to me, trying to confer
upon me something very much like heavenly grace. I wait for it, trembling. (208)

Yet to his endless regret and chagrin, Lt. Mamiya never gains another glimpse at
what the light possesses, and his perceived ascendance towards celestial paradise is cut
short when the sunlight disappears. His plight is typical in Murakami. The most life-
affirming, spiritually-enriching experiences tend to come at a severe cost, for despite Lt.
Mamiyas desire to die at that rapturous moment, he will not die even years later as a
prisoner-of-war in a brutal Siberian gulag. When he finally is freed and returns to J apan,
he has no family waiting for him, and he spends the rest of his life alone. In this way he
resembles boku in A Wild Sheep Chase.
9
This is the cost of glimpsing the truth; it reveals
a world that is not cognizant of right or wrong, where one cannot always choose the best
moments to live, die, or kill. The horrendous acts of cruelty and violence that Lt.
Mamiya witnessed have proven this to him, and his account serves as a reminder of
J apans inability to reconcile its dark and violent past.
The thing that Lt. Mamiya struggles to identify is the J ungian strangerthe
unknown element of his own Self. Yet to Toru, his close encounter shows that the
subconscious can be reachedif not wholly grasped. Toru is encouraged of the
possibility of replicating, and perhaps surpassing, Lt. Mamiyas experience. The story
(as well as another told to Toru by Nutmeg Akasaka) draws Toru into the continuity of its
reality, from the past to the present. For the first time he realizes that he has become a
part of the unbroken stream of historical violence that Mr. Honda, Lt. Mamiya, and

9
Recall the final scene on the beach, in which boku says, I never cried so much in my life (353).
84

Nutmegs father had witnessed. Yet rather than despair at the overwhelming sense of
futility, he seeks to transcend the purported barriers and preserve the beam of sunlight for
both himself and Kumiko. Once again, this is his most laudable endeavor, showing that
he has shifted his moral consciousness from leaving the moral void as it is in
[Murakamis] early novels to fighting it in this novel (Murakami Fuminobu 139). While
the other two novels also deal with the moral void (i.e. the Bosss cruel Will of A Wild
Sheep Chase and the brutal information wars in Hard-Boiled Wonderland), it is
Murakamis raw historical portrayal in Wind-Up Bird that helps to propel Toru forward.
The encouragement that there is a way to find Kumiko gives Toru an urgent moral
epiphany in the middle of the novel, in which he abandons detachment and embraces
commitment: I had to get Kumiko back. With my own hands, I had to pull her back
into this world. Because if I didnt, that would be the end of me. This person, this self
that I think of as me would be lost (338). With this bold goal now set in place, he
becomes a questor seeking not merely romantic and nostalgic connections to the past
but also a more active means of making sense of [his life] and the bewildering plurality of
hyperrealities around [him] (Gregory, et.al.). Having listened to Lt. Mamiyas
harrowing account, Toru must delve into not only his subconscious but also that of
J apans collective identity so as to uncover the root cause of societys woes.
In the awareness phase, the female characters demonstrated to Toru that there
exists a world beyond the consciousness, and that it can be accessed and manipulated; Lt.
Mamiyas story in Torus encouragement phase proved that this other world contains the
essence of what he is seeking. Now, in the identification phase, Toru shakes off his
passivity. Wasting little time preparing himself for that hopeful experience, he stashes
85

some supplies in a knapsack and climbs down into the well of the nearby abandoned
house. He views the well as a physical conduit, or portal, to his subconscious mind.
Such devices exist in other forms throughout Murakamis body of work, as the author
admits: Subterranean worldswells, underpasses, caves, underground springs, and
rivers, dark alleys, subwayshave always fascinated me and are an important motif in
my novels (Murakami, qtd. in Matsuoka 307-08). It could be argued by extension that
the Rats abandoned house in A Wild Sheep Chase and the vast Tokyo underground in
Hard-Boiled Wonderland also serve as conduits, but Wind-Up Birds well is the first
conduit in Murakami to be used expressly for that purpose.
10

Toru enters the well in order to begin his first proactive passing through to his
core identity, where the J ungian stranger lurks.
Taking a breath, I sat on the floor of the well, with my back against the wall. I
closed my eyes and let my body become accustomed to the place. [] Here in
this darkness, with its strange sense of significance, my memories began to take
on a power they had never had before. The fragmentary images they called up
inside me were mysteriously vivid in every detail, to the point where I felt I could
grasp them in my hands. (Wind-Up Bird, 221-222)

Unable to distinguish himself from the viscid blackness, Torus penetration, both
figurative and literal, takes him through the stone wall and into the dim corridor of the
eerie, dreamlike hotel. In this transcendental state he moves from his subjective, self-
centered perspective closer to the embodiment of his full Jungian Self. He passes into a
state of undifferentiation, a state of abjection, where he is only flesh and no-subject, or
where the borders of his subjectivity are at best elusive and tenuous (Seats 291). It is a
paradoxical moment that embodies both the Eastern, Zen notion of the self as nothingness

10
Proper names, due to their stabilizing and individualizing (to paraphrase Seats) tendencies on a persons
identity, are another conduit linking them to an underlying meaning. See page 70.
86

and J ungs Western concept of the archetypal Self as completeness: the unified
consciousness and unconscious of a person. Ironically, both concepts are symbolized by
a circle, which is the universal pattern for the symbolic expression of the archetypal self
or what J ung calls the God within (Golden 220).
Already Toru is much better-equipped for his attempted journey to the other
world. May Kasahara, not realizing that he has descended into the well, pulls up the
ladder; later, when she is not convinced of his fear of being trapped and abandoned, she
closes the well cover and seals him in complete darkness. With these actions she helps
Toru consummate this stage of his psychological process; Toru narrates, my conscious
mind began to slip away from my physical body. I saw myself as the wind-up
birdSomeone would have to wind the worlds spring in its place (256). In this
dreamlike state, he enters the subconscious hotel, encounters the telephone
woman/Kumiko, and reemerges into the physical world with the facial mark as evidence
of his psychological breakthrough. His relationship with both May Kasahara and Creta
Kano deepens, as they both recognize the marks significance in their own ways: Creta
desires to have sex with him in order to be liberated from this defilement-like something
inside me (312). May kisses the mark and has Toru touch her face, and he detects that
the waves of her consciousness pulsed through my fingertips and into me (326). In
addition, the mark leads Toru to Nutmeg Akasaka, who sees it as a symbol of Torus
power to heal fractured identities. It is a sign of his mystical power, but also a living
presence, an external emblem of the black box that lurks inside his mind (Strecher,
Magical Realism 291). Together, these three women demonstrate that Torus brief
passage into his subconscious has given him paranormal abilities.
87

The protagonists of A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland are
entrapped within their worlds and identities, as they possess no physical device upon
which they can exert their subconscious energies. Boku of A Wild Sheep Chase is too
cynical and aloof, and watashi/boku of Hard-Boiled Wonderland are alienated from the
other side via, respectively, the black box implant and the Wall surrounding the Town. In
Wind-Up Bird, however, Toru learns that he is not only living in a world where
penetration to the subconscious is possible, but that such passing through is also an
inherent part of the livelihood of several characters offering assistance. During the
novels first half his role is passivenot just socially, but sexually as well. Strecher
observes, There is a link between the core identity, sexuality, and violence, one which
is perhaps inevitable given the fact that coitus itself involves a penetration and is thus
innately a violation, a literal invasion of the body (Magical Realism 290). Toru is
penetrated by the erotically charged words of the telephone woman, by Creta Kanos
appearance in his dreams, and by the lips and tongues of female clients probing his mark
for psychological healing. In these ways he himself serves as a conduit for these women;
his passivity proves liberating to those with whom he comes into contact, as a means of
recovering their own sense of active selfhood (Strecher, Readers Guide 32).
Yet it is Nutmeg Akasaka who allows Torus personal quest for Kumiko to
proceed from the submissive role to the active one. The first three phases of his
awakening are but a prelude to his final task of enacting his wifes rescue. He has
achieved his ability to pass into the other world but is still struggling with navigating its
subliminal corridors. His freedom to keep utilizing the well is endangered until Nutmeg,
taking advantage of her vast financial resources, purchases the property and gives him
88

discreet daily access. The well is the foundation of his subconscious struggle, and
because Nutmeg is aware of his special abilities, she joins May Kasahara and Creta Kano
as the third member of the profound triumvirate from the relationship table. Over the
course of several chapters, she tells him her story about her fathers demise as a cavalry
veterinarian in Manchuria during the war, her subsequent upbringing in J apan by her
mother, and the gruesome and senseless murder of her husband. Her narrative, along
with the writings of her mute son Cinnamon, is also important in providing further insight
in the historical continuum of which Toru has unknowingly become a part. Within his
new employment as an identity healer, Torus identification phase of his journey is
nearly complete.
One last element remains, however. Although Toru knows that the well provides
him subconscious access to his wife, on a physical level he is still lost. It is not his overt
mission to find her in the physical world, but during his trials in the well he is stymied by
his lack of direct interaction with Kumiko. His meeting with the shady and cunning
Ushikawa, who works for Noboru Wataya, provides the opportunity he needs. The typed
computerized conversation that Ushikawa arranges for Toru and Kumikowho, of
course, responds to him only from the other side of the screenallows Toru to tell her,
Slowly but surelyI am getting closer to the core, to that place where the core of things
is located. I wanted to let you know that. Im getting closer to where you are, and I
intend to get closer still (491). Despite her resistance, he knows that her mind has been
forcibly transformed by her brother. His electronic vow serves its purpose: to make his
ongoing psychological process realnot only to her, but also to Noboru Wataya. Both
of them wait for him in the subconscious hotel, where his journey ends, and his bold
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declaration of commitment brings about the next and final phase: fulfillment. He has
been given all the knowledge and tools he requires to find Kumiko, and unlike his
counterparts in the previous two novels, his access to a dedicated conduit gives him a
tremendous advantage. In the well, he creates his own metaphysical space, a sanctuary in
which he recharges, refocuses, and relaunches his mind for his mission. As he explains
to May Kasahara: This way, you can really concentrate. Its dark and cool and quiet
(253).
Toru lives in the 1980s, which demonstrates J apans suffering from information
overload, the irrelevance of human values and spirituality in a world dominated by the
inhuman logic of postindustrial capitalism, and the loss of contact with other human
beings (Gregory, et.al). This is the aftermath of the world depicted in A Wild Sheep
Chase, where the corruption of the Bosss covert organization has emerged into the light
of society. As Torus alienation from his vacant, stagnant, dissatisfying physical world
grows, the well aligns him with the subconscious world just beneath the surface
[wherein] lurks a violent history (Rubin 213). By focusing on this underworld, Toru
commits himself to the restoration of destroyed communication with his wife
(Cassegard 88) and saves her from the all-encompassing, authoritative evil that he
understands is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in modern J apanese
history: from the wartime atrocities against the Chinese, to the senseless sacrifice of
J apanese soldiers, to the suppression of idealism and hope in the 1960s, to the mind-
numbing frustration and boredom of the 1970s, and at last to the soul-draining capitalism
and consumerism of the 1980s.
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The present state of darkness is personified by the inexplicable rise of Noboru
Wataya, who represents the driving force of evilembedded in capitalism[who
would be] most likely to direct [J apan] on the course of violence it once took (Matsuoka
308). He is the human embodiment of the malevolent sheep of A Wild Sheep Chase, as if
it has taken possession of Noborus body as it had dominated the Boss; he also possesses
the cunning, power, and malice of both the Semiotecs and the Gatekeeper of Hard-Boiled
Wonderland. The evil and corruption that Mr. Honda, Lt. Mamiya, and Nutmegs father
had encountered in the war have become authority figures who now propel the country
even further along the dark trajectory initiated by its imperialist past. While Noborus
origins are only implied, so much about J apans violent history has been revealed to Toru
that he knows Noboru Wataya to be hisand societysultimate enemy. As such, he
provides a focal point for Toru to defeat, while his counterparts merely faced nebulous
antagonists such as sheep, INKlings, and nameless thugs, none of whom had any personal
connection to them. As Creta Kano tells Toru, In a world where you are losing
everything, Mr. Okada, Noboru Wataya is gaining everything. In a world where you are
rejected, he is accepted. And the opposite is just as true. Which is why he hates you so
intensely (312). And which is why Toru must overcome him.
Because of Torus fixation on his goal, he is the only protagonist of the three
discussed in this paper to be aware of the clear separation between the external and
internal worlds, and with a stronger grip on this distinction he is the only one equipped to
transcend one to the other. Wind-Up Bird does not clarify the distinction between the real
and the imaginary, but after Toru receives the mark on his face he becomes aware that his
passing through is not his imagination. His actions in both worlds have real
91

consequences. He can only recover Kumikos shredded identity after he has entered her
hotel room, recognized her voice in the darkness
11
, and killed Noboru Wataya, who
himself is waiting for the opportunity to destroy him. Yet even with these obstacles
overcome, and Kumiko returned to the conscious world, for some time thereafter her Self
will remain in tatters. Having been arrested for murdering her brother, she does not make
an actual appearance; the reader cannot ascertain her state of mind and whether her
marriage to Toru will hereafter reflect the many transformations he has undergone for her.
This is, no doubt, Murakamis intention. The novels conclusion is ambiguous,
with the completion of Torus four-stage quest falling a bit short of the goal line. Indeed,
despite Wind-Up Bird being the most positive of the three novels, Murakami denies the
readers absolute assurance that all is well and that the J ungian circle has indeed been
completed. Instead, the author gives this final exchange between Toru and May
Kasahara so the reader can draw his or her own conclusions:
And you, Mr. Wind-Up Birdyoull stay home and wait for Kumiko again?
I nodded.
Thats goodor is it?
I made my own big white cloud in the cold air. I dont knowI guess its how
we worked things out.
It could have been a whole lot worse, I told myself. (Wind-Up Bird 605)

A whole lot worse, as has been seen in the previous two novels, is indeed a distinct
possibility. Toru is neither alone, nor have his world and identity been ripped away. He
still lives in a realm of rich possibility and hope, and he may soon learn the full
consequences of his noble actions. As Strecher comments:
We might well imagine that Toru's power as a mystical healer would save
[Kumiko], but, unfortunately, with the destruction of Noboru Wataya, Toru's

11
He must remember and speak her name, which again demonstrates why proper names have become so
significant in this novel, as compared to the others.
92

connection with the other world of the unconscious disappears, and with it his
ability to heal. He can now only wait for his wife to rediscover her individual
identity, now that he has helped her to rediscover her name. (Magical Realism
293)

He lingers at the perimeter of his Selfs circle, unable to close it fully but patient enough
to remain there for Kumiko and hope for the best. As J ung wrote, [The subconscious] is
and remains beyond the reach of subjective arbitrary control, a realm where nature and
her secrets can be neither improved upon nor perverted, where we can listen but may not
meddle (J ung, Psychological Reflections 26). By altering the physical world from
within his subconscious, Toru has meddled to a certain degree, but upon achieving his
selfless objective, his ability and desire have both vanished.
In this sense, Toru is back in the awareness phase once againaware that his
powers have brought Kumiko back, but aware also that he no longer possesses those
same abilities. The well is filled with water, his mark has disappeared, and every
character except for May Kasahara has faded into obscurity. Although all three
protagonists realize that an act is needed to open up and to be linked with the other
world, only Toru has found the means to do so (Kawai, qtd. in Singer & Kimbles 94-95).
Because he has traveled back to the beginning again, he can afford to waitnot only for
Kumikos recovery, but also, if necessary, for another chance to perceive the wind-up
birds singular call.

93

Conclusion: Hope for the Future

The overall positive feeling at the conclusion of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is
the proper way to end this lengthy J ungian analysis, as J ung believed in the potential for
everyone to reach a higher state of consciousness. His optimism is not a quality that
Murakami shares. However, when A Wild Sheep Chase, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and
the End of the World, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are examined as a continuum of
the souls search for itself, there is an intensifying sense of hope. Although Murakamis
protagonists are mourningsomething less specific than the body, the disappearance of
some essential vision, some unified concept of the world in which to place themselves,
with each novel they grow closer to attaining that vision (Lin, Break on Through).
They also increasingly understand the value of reaching out to share that vision with
another person.
The evolution of the Murakami protagonist is especially striking when the scope
of the authors work is widened to include novels written both before and after the trio
discussed here. Pinball 1973 was published before A Wild Sheep Chase, and Norwegian
Wood emerged between A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End
of the World. During this period, Murakami transitioned from the conflict between self
and environment in terms of daily, surface reality to a kind of simulation approach in
which the conflicts existing within his protagonists' personal consciousnesses were
simulated and then projected into the surreal, labyrinthine regions of dream and
personalized, J ungian unconsciousness (Gregory, et.al., It Dont Mean a Thing). This
expanding vision of the J ungian Self allowed him to explore it in symbolic, dyadic terms:
conscious vs. subconscious, external vs. internal, light vs. dark, and good vs. evil.
94

Over time, his protagonists grew from the selfish and isolated boku of the early
novels to the fully named and sympathetic heroes of more recent works. Particularly
since The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, these characters display a deepening sense of hope
and fellowship. Kafka on the Shore, whose English translation was released in 2006,
provides a happily ending saga of maturation, of a brand-new world for a purged
[protagonist] (Updike, Subconscious Tunnels). 2007s After Dark also offers a
positive outlook, for amid the alienation are flickers of hopefulness springing from
seemingly random, serendipitous human interactions and connections (McAlpin,
Search). Although the moralism [of these novels] can be heartening, Murakamis
core themes of alienation and the anti-establishment are unaltered (Wind-Down Bird).
Like the three novels of this analysis, even the optimism of his latest works contains an
undercurrent of nothingness, of emptiness, of blissful blankness (Updike, ibid.).
Nevertheless, against whatever odds, his protagonists persist in their efforts to overcome
their psycho-social barriers, thereby transcending the borders of their selves and
approachingwithout quite reachinga level of spiritual transcendence.
J ung confronts this very issue, taking it to a level of explicitness that Murakami,
so far, has refrained from exploring. In the passage below, J ung asserts that the
individuation of the Self should not only be a private spiritual quest, but also, in fact, a
moral duty that all of humanity shares. By failing to complete our J ungian circle, we will
never fulfill our human potential of full consciousness. He wrote:
But why the deuceyou will certainly askshould one at all costs reach a
higher state of consciousness? This question strikes at the core of the problem,
and I cannot easily answer it. It is a confession of faith. I believe that finally
someone had to know that this wonderful universe of mountains, seas, suns and
moons, milky ways, and fixed stars exists. Standing on a little hill on the East
African plains, I saw herds of thousands of wild beasts grazing in soundless peace,
95

beneath the breath of the primeval world, as they had done for unimaginable ages
of time, and I had the feeling of being the first man, the first being to know that all
this is. The whole world around me was still in the primeval silence and knew not
that it was. In this very moment in which I knew it, the world came into existence,
and without this moment it would never have been. All nature seeks this purpose
and finds it fulfilled in man and only in the most differentiated, most conscious
man. (J ung, Psychological Reflections 35)

The closest that Murakami comes to J ungs confession of faith is Lt. Mamiyas
experience in the well, when he is confronted with the shadow in the midst of the
blinding light. Although I have depicted it as the psychological J ungian stranger, Lt.
Mamiyas term heavenly grace also implies a spiritual Other. Addressing his own
pitiable condition, he states that such a glimpse will never last for very long: The light
shines into the act of life for only the briefest momentonce it is gone and one has failed
to grasp its offered revelation, there is no second chance (Wind-Up Bird 209).
Murakamis protagonists discover this brevity of opportunity for themselves; it is one
thing for them to confront their subconscious selves and yet another to turn this
accomplishment into an enduring benefit.
As mentioned in the introduction, Murakami, along with many J apanese, does not
consider himself religious.
12
It is unlikely, therefore, that he intends to provide a
confession of his own anytime soon. Instead, he puts himself in his protagonists shoes.
As Gabriel observes, the authors autobiographical travel writing is inextricably linked
to a lonely struggle for self identity, in which Murakami depicts himself undergoing
many of the same kinds of struggles as his fictional protagonists (Gabriel 155). In one
such kind of excerpt, Murakami writes:
In the mornings when I woke up, I first went to the kitchen and filled the kettle,
and turned on the switch on the electric heater. In order to make coffee. And

12
Although Buddhism and Shinto are the dominant religions of J apan and are the basis of countless
historical traditions, most J apanese live a more secular lifestyle than those of many other cultures.
96

while I waited for the water to boil, I prayed: Pleaselet me live a little bit
longer. I need a little more time. But who should I be praying to? My life up
till now had been too self-centered to allow me to pray to God. (Murakami, qtd. in
Gabriel 156)

His invocation of God is certainly not an admission of faith, but it suggests that at the
very least Murakami is also engaged in his own psychological questone in which he
looks to the J ungian stranger for guidance and inspiration in his writing:
For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me
intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today,
something you can't normally do in everyday life. It's also a way of descending
deep into my own consciousness. So while I see it as dreamlike, it's not fantasy.
For me the dreamlike is very real. (Murakami, qtd. in Haruki Murakami)

This is Murakamis observance of what J ung called the spiritual adventure of our
timethe surrender of human consciousness to what is undetermined and
undeterminable (Psychological Reflections 322). To Murakami, the possibility of self-
discovery in his writing presumably ensures that each of his novels allows him to draw
nearer to his J ungian stranger. Despite his claims of the subconscious being terra
incognita, it seems undeniable that from novel to novel, protagonist to protagonist, he is
uncovering more and more of that precious, hidden space. Even though neither he nor
his protagonists have complete and perpetual control of a conduit (like Torus well) that
could fully expose the J ungian stranger, core identity, black box, or rooms in ourselves
to the light, Murakami believes in the value of such effortsas wayward and misguided
as they may be.

97

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