When I first read the chapter, ten years ago, I had no connection to it. He hears the song and is taken back in time to his university years, on a walk with a girl in a meadow on a hot day, looking for a well. The book begins with Norwegian Wood, the Beatles song, playing on an airport speaker system.

GradeSaver, 25 September 2018 Web.Ten years ago, I tried to read Norwegian Wood, a semi-autobiographical novel by the author Haruki Murakami. I couldn’t finish it, but for some reason, the first few pages stuck with me. Next Section Symbols, Allegory and Motifs Previous Section Quotes How To Cite in MLA Format Anonymous 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Study Guide: Analysis'. Will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback. You can help us out by revising, improving and updatingĪfter you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. Therefore, May, Kumiko, Nutmeg, and even Creta, are all symbolically the same character: They are variations on the theme of an 'anima' or even a 'succubus.' Update this section! Therefore, a more elegant analysis of the novel might be that Murakami is designing a surrealistic story to show the adult effects of something like an Oedipal complex. However, that's not the whole story Toru also beats the tar out of two random men (who admittedly might be delusions).

In many regards, he has been classified by his entire community as a weak man and a failure.

His best friend seems to be a girl who is too young for his advances. On one hand, he seems to have a cool, calm opinion of things, and he can content himself with a simple plate of spaghetti and a nice jazz album. The premise of that short story alone is very similar to the effect of the novel broadly, so in form, it seems that the narrative structure of the entire novel is basically 'variations on a theme' of the original short story, meaning that analytically, the novel is about a wife who isn't present in her marriage (she's almost not in the novel at all) and the unfortunate powers women have over Toru.Īs a main character, Toru is complex. The Wind-Up Bird starts with a short story that was previously published as 'The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women,' although there are differences in the translation (he writes in Japanese). Murakami is famous for his alternation between short stories and long form novels. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

Chronicles of the wind up bird