Mahanian 1

Ariela Mahanian

Professor Jon Beadle

English 115

01 November 2020

The Monstrous

I assume that everyone has been through at least one monstrous life event before. Right?

But what even is considered a monstrous situation for an individual? In the two stories “The

Mirror” and “The Silence” by Haruki Murakami, they both present ideas of the monstrous, either

as coming from the self or from society. “The Mirror” deals with more of a self-monstrous event,

while “The Silence” relates to a more monstrous situation that deals with society itself. Both

stories happen to be about hate and the idea of disliking the protagonist. Another way of

expressing self-hate is self-loathing. Self-loathing is an extreme criticism towards yourself.

When comparing and contrasting the two short stories, I have to say that the short story “The

Mirror” offers a more monstrous approach because the protagonist comes in conflict with his

own self when encountering a paranormal experience at his night shift. Realizing that you have a

fear of your own self, whether it is because of the way you look, speak, or act is definitely more

repulsive than having hate from another person because happiness starts with liking your own

self first.

In the short story “The Mirror '' by Haruki Murakami the night watchman seems to have a

dislike towards the reflection he sees in the mirror. Apparently, the person who is in the mirror

believes to actually be his own self. He starts to get his hateful feeling of fear and disgust

towards the reflection for some odd personal reason. The story presented this character as having

the feeling as in thinking he was not good enough or that he was unworthy of the good things in
 Mahanian 2

life. This man comes in conflict with his own self and then realizes that “the most frightening

thing in the world is yourself” (Murakam, “The Mirror” 60). I strongly believe that the night

watchman may have been dreaming or may have experienced an anxiety attack from being

frightened of being alone in the dark at an empty school. This fear was something that saved him

from his own loneliness because it was said to be that we all have the feeling of fear as a survival

emotion. The full meaning of the survival mechanism is really trying to say that a person just

wants to protect themselves from being hurt by other people. Understanding the real meaning of

what it’s like to be in a loneliness state of mind is what really attracted the night watchman.

When your mind and body get used to that loneliness feeling you start to, in some cases, develop

some depression. In the book A Philosophy of Fear written by Lars Svendsen it goes in depth

about what the emotion of fear really is. Lars Svendsen explains to his audience in his book

about the underlying ideas and issues behind the powerful emotion of fear. The author states, “a

creature without the capacity to feel fear will have a worse chance of surviving and procreating”

(Svendsen 21). This experience is presented as monstrous because of the way that the author

explains to his readers about how he was the reflection of what was in the mirror in the room and

how the reflection in the mirror was trying to take control of him. This wasn’t the first

paranormal activity experience this man has had either but it sure was his first time experiencing

this moment while working his shift. There are definitely more deeper reasons why an individual

person wouldn’t even want to look at their own selves in the mirror or to why they do not have

any mirrors up in their own house; the night watchman claims he does not own any mirror and

never has and that he shaves every morning without one. “You may have noticed that I don't

have any mirrors here in my house. A deeper reason to the reaction could be a factor of anxiety

and insecurity. Learning how to shave without one was no easy feat, believe me (Murakam “The
 Mahanian 3

Mirror” 60). What this means is that this night watchman does all of his daily duties without

looking at himself because if he did then he would get a more and more feeling of sadness and

pain. Self-hatred may be from not believing that you're smart, attractive, or special enough. This

self-hate had to come from his past of when he was young and mentally healthy. The reason

why I believe that self-hatred is worse than hatred from society is because you cannot appreciate

others in society without appreciating your own self.

In “The Silence,” the protagonist is Ozawa, who comes in conflict with a classmate

named Aoki. Ozawa and Aoki don’t really get along as well as they do with their other

classmates. Ozawa does not get along with Aoki because a rumor was spread about him for

assuming that Ozawa was the reason for one of their classmate’s suicide fall. Ozawa is a kid who

sort of has a loner personality. “The Silence” starts to get monstrous right after their classmate

commits suicide and people start blaming Ozawa for the suicidal incident. The moment when

everyone started ignoring Ozawa, was the moment when his mental health started to go down

and it was being affected in a negative way by making him feel lonely in a sad, different way

than usual. He’s usually a sad, introverted person but in a positive way. Ozawa started losing his

appetite, his sleep was affected by a large amount, and he went into a depression mode. He was

most likely on the edge of committing suicide. Fully developing what it’s like to be alone isn’t

easy but it happens when you develop a great amount of sadness because of the lack of friends

and company that is occurring around your environment. Loneliness causes a person to feel

empty, alone, and unwanted. People who are alone tend to crave human contact and attention

from others. That individuals state of mind makes it more difficult for them to form a connection

with another human being. Loneliness does not necessarily have to mean that you are alone. It

could protentional show that you are going through something with yourself. You could be home
 Mahanian 4

with your family but still get that feeling of loneliness. This is exactly what was happening to

Ozawa. The book Loneliness: A Social Problem written by Keming Yang explains the negative

and positive benefits of what loneliness brings to us human beings and she shows her audience

how loneliness became a big social issue. She states that “loneliness is a serious problem not

only as a painful psychological experience but more importantly as a trigger for a set of serious

medical conditions.” (Keming 23). “The silence” is monstrous because of how scary it is to

know that people are so quick to judge someone else who is different from them. At the end of

the story Ozawa moved away and learned to be a bigger person. He decided for himself that it is

okay to move on and start something new and better. As much as it seemed like they were

forgiving each other on the train ride, it was actually not like that. They just noticed one another

and gave a quick wave. Unlike in “The mirror” the ending turned out positive for Ozawa because

“he took up boxing because his uncle owned a gym” (Murakam “The Silence'' 295). After he

became a boxer, he never hit anyone again without his boxing gloves on. Hate from the society

fixes itself but self-hatred needs to be fixed on your own time because you do not just heal

yourself hate with time like hate from society does. As we see at the end Aoki and Ozawa

forgive each other and all is fixed and they both feel better about hating each other.

In addition to Ozawa letting others affect his mood, the night watchman also let someone

ruin his mood as well, except that someone was just himself. Both of these short stories actually

had a few things in common but it just showed in different ways. Monstrous events can happen

from many things, not just scary situations but also painful, hurtful, sad, and even risky settings.

On the other hand, if the story “The Silence” had a more monstrous approach, I’d say it

would be because of the loss of a classmate at a young age and having to go through an isolation

phase of being alone and depressed, which was what was happening to the protagonist Ozawa.
 Mahanian 5

The reasoning for my observation was more of a personal decision. While the night watchman

was going through a self-hate phase, Ozawa was going through more of a lonely, depressed stage

in his school years. Looking at both of the situations, they both are considered to be a monstrous

situation, just one more than the other. Self-hatred is far more monstrous than societal-hatred.

Some will say that having “The Mirror” be a more monstrous approach because of self-hatred

being stronger is not true because others think differently and may either not put themselves first

in life or just believe that the bullying of others should stop before they stop bullying on

themselves.

In conclusion, both of the protagonists were telling stories to someone who was older

than them about their youth experience of what hurt them the most in the past. Both Ozawa and

the night watchman are around the same age when telling these stories in the story. Referring

back to the more monstrous story of “The Mirror”, it is considered to be more monstrous than

“The Silence” because of the meaning behind the reflection of yourself being a scarier factor.

Being afraid, is deeper and more frightening than being blamed for a suicide and even the loss of

a classmate. Even though in both short stories the protagonists were spreading and receiving hate

towards themselves, which is a negative trait to have and deal with, being hateful in any way is

considered to be a monstrous act and it should never be done. Hate with society, yourself, or

even both is hurtful.

Works Cited

Svendsen, Lars. A Philosophy of Fear. Chicago: Reaktion Books, 2008. Pages 1-42
 Mahanian 6

Yang, Keming. Loneliness: A Social Problem. England, UK. Published by Routledge, 2020.

Pages 21-41 & pages 92-101

Murakami, Haruki. The Mirror. Vintage Books, 2006. Pages 53-60

Murakami, Haruki. The Silence. Vintage Books, 1993. Pages 293-305