Strawberry Shortcake Essay

Isabella Cao

English IV

March 5, 2015

Ms. D'Amico

Strawberry Shortcake: The Women and their Roles in Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood follows the story of a young man’s coming of age in Tokyo after the suicide of his best friend, Kizuki. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Toru Watanabe, meets various women who influence him and shape his outlook on life as he progresses through his relationship with Kizuki's girlfriend, Naoko. Naoko herself is a reminder of adolescence, death, and the loss of innocence to Watanabe; her mental instability is a reminder of the suicide of his best friend so therefore he can only associate her with his past. The girlfriend of Watanabe's dorm mate, Hatsumi, is an image of what Watanabe believes

After reflecting on Reiko's letter about Naoko's death, Watanabe is able to see the parallels between him and Reiko when he remarks, "And just as Naoko and I had shared the dead Kizuki, Reiko and I shared the dead Naoko" (279). Here, Watanabe implies that death, or loss, is what brings people closer together, and while Naoko's death will be another weight on their shoulders, it has connected Watanabe and Reiko on a personal level. In sharing their grief, they are able to help each other to accept death. As Watanabe mourns Naoko, Reiko tells him that, "That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives" (269). Reiko speaks from experience, as if she is telling Watanabe to not do what she had done as a young woman. She is likely living through the same regret that she is telling Watanabe not to feel, and she wants to help Watanabe overcome the grief and mourning that Reiko had to go through in the past. She asks him to let go of his past Ami and starts a new life, Watanabe reflects, "We were alive, she and I. And all we had to think about was continuing to live...'Be happy,'

Her spontaneity and honesty is what attracts the lost and weary Watanabe, who is looking for a new beginning, and together they form a romance that is solely focused on living in the present. Midori seems to never hold on to regrets nor mourn for the things that she has lost -- when Watanabe expresses concern over Midori after the death of her father, she merely brushes it off; "Nah, a funeral's a piece of cake. We've had plenty of practice...We were drained, my sister and me. We couldn't even cry. We didn't have any tears left. Except, when you do that, they start whispering about you...The bastards! The more they wanted to see us cry, the more determined we were not to give them the satisfaction" (221). Midori has gone through so much death in her life that she no longer cares about it -- she stops dwelling on people who existed in her past and instead, she solely focuses on her relationships in the present. She seems to regard death and funerals as a mere formality, and looks down on those who criticize her lack of sympathy. Midori refuses to conform to the expectations that the death of her father is something that she's supposed to mourn, and in order to keep on defying those expectations, she refuses to cry. Midori's idiosyncrasy can also be seen when Watanabe visits her home. She says to her father's shrine, "Night-night,