Murakami Haruki's postmodern world

• Published in: Japan forum (Oxford, England) England), 2002-01, Vol.14 (1), p.127-141
• Main Author: Murakami, Fuminobu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Differentiation; Haruki Murakami; Identification And Totalization; Ideology; Individualization; Japan; Love; Modernism; Novels; Paradigms; Postmodernism; Rationalism; Regional studies
• ISSN: 0955-5803; 1469-932X
• DOI: 10.1080/09555800120109068

We can point out two dominating ideologies in modernism: 'strongis-good' and 'love-is-beautiful', both of which over-value progress and romantic love. Although in the modern period these ideologies have long been highly regarded, in late capitalist society their negative effects have increasingly become apparent. Apart from the obvious ecological pollution that modernist developments have caused, the concept of rational progress inevitably requires that everyone progress in the same direction. Furthermore, apart from the empathic identification which exists between loving people, love also causes discrimination against the 'stranger'. Highly sensitive to these negative aspects, many of Murakami Haruki's narrators and characters experience emotional and rational detachment both from themselves and from the events taking place around them. These characters display a paradigm shift from modernism to postmodernism, from an obsession with evolution and love to an indifferent egalitarianism based on fairness or justice without force. Focusing on these points, this article analyses four of Murakami's novels - A Wild Sheep Chase , The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Norwegian Wood and Dance Dance Dance - and attempts to show that their themes are directly related to postmodernism, the resistance to modernism and the search for utopia. At the same time, it discusses criticisms of issues such as rationalism and discrimination.