The Elephant Vanishes By Murrakami Analysis

Everyone is unique. However as the city develop in a more commercial way, do we lost ourself in this world? Do we just follow others? The author Haruki Murakami wrote a short story “The Elephant Vanishes” in 1985 and published in the short story collect “The Elephant Vanishes” in 1993. This short story records the absurd event of an elephant and it’s keeper vanished in a night in Japan. Murakami makes social commentary of Japan especially on the commercialism and lost of individuality through the characterisation of the narrator and his interpretation of this event in the short story “The Elephant Vanishes”.

First, the unnamed narrator got a diversity of personalities thus express his thought on the “Elephant Vanishes” news and bought up

This quote is not helpful for reader to understand more about the news of the elephant vanishes. Therefore we can come up with the conclusion that the narrator is not just the narrator of the news. This gives an indication of what role of the narrator in the story. Murakami characterise the unnamed narrator as methodical. “My alarm clock woke me that day, as always, at 6:13” (Murakami, 1993, p.308) “I’m one of those people who read the paper from beginning to end, in order” (Murakami, 1993, p.308). From this two fact we can see he is very organised. He must set the alarm to 6:13 very exactly and showing he is very methodical. And also from his habit that he read the newspaper from the beginning to the end everyday also revealing that he is a very methodical person. Murakami also characterise the unnamed narrator is a sales which dazzled by work. “she said when I finished. She used the Japanese work, without picking up on ‘kit-chin’” (Murakami, 1993, p.319), “‘We say ‘kit-chin’’ I advised her. ‘Not big deal, but the company wants us to use the English.” (Murakami, 1993, p.320) We have to notice they are

As we know the unnamed character is very methodical, although it sounds very personal personalities. However, it does links to the society problem. Because he is methodical to everything in his life, he is over organised. And this lead to the unnamed character lives in the world with just only the value of money, business. He cannot pull himself out from this society, he is been influenced by the value of business, commercial, money. Eventually shaping this methodical personalities. And also in “The Elephant Vanishes”, the unnamed character is different to other unnamed characters in Murakami’s story. He got a job in a advertisement company and there are possibility of he suffering a lot of pressure and even when he back home he is still think of his business issue. This actually is what Murakami would like to project to the viewers. From the unnamed character’s daily life and thinking we can knew that he is force to be methodical due he society he is living in with just the values of money, commercial, business. Murakami not just used the unnamed character’s personalities to bring out the society status and make a social commentary but also use his thought especially on the news of elephant vanishes. “And so the various parties had met to deliberate on the matter, and they formulated an agreement on the disposition of the