Murakami's Short Story: The Wind Up Bird And Tuesday Women

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Written Assignment
Kelvin Lau F.6

Murakami delights the readers of his short stories which convey his idea on themes such as the absurdities of daily life, quirky characters and their strange pre-occupations and the changing status of men and women. He uses techniques such as switching from realism to surrealism, the use of recurring symbols and motifs and a tone of detached amusement to support his themes.

Murakami creates the idea of strong absurdity to the reader; at some point readers become confused about the theme and the message beneath as he is very familiar with switching realism into surrealism. This can be seen from his story “On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning”. At the beginning of the story he redirects the day where he meets the girl on the street but fails to know her in person. Immediately he switches …show more content…

Focusing on Murakami’s hidden message, gender differences and status, it may seem significant that it reflects on culture of Japanese gender inequality. It is still some of Japanese’s tradition for women becoming house wife. In "The wind up bird and Tuesday women" the narrator clearly mirrors it pretty strongly. Murakami this story written in strong purpose that it is difficult to understand at the first time, but then it becomes clearer where he try simulating the hidden culture by the use of irony and satire to criticize the problem of inequality.
In summary, Murakami is an author that amazes reader with his well use of writing techniques such as imagery and symbolism. Also, he’s strong sense of simulating strange abstraction and leaving readers turning circles changes the experience of fictions into some high level appreciation. While it is enjoyable to read, it is also full of surprises in every story he writes, involving intimation of cultural criticism and author’s personal feelings. All in all, to fully appreciate and understand Murakami’s motifs in each of his stories, it is essential to understand his