Short Essay: After Dark
Haruki Murakami tests the boundaries between everyday Tokyo reality and a surreal realm in After Dark. The book follows two sisters who are each present in different realities. In this novel, Murakami uses sleep as a symbol of disengagement and disassociation from the world.
The plot bounces between many different locations, but centralizes around Eri’s bedroom and the love hotel, Alphaville. Takahashi discloses to Mari later in the book that his original business of being at the love hotel was not to work there, but rather, he was customer with a girl he knew. Mari’s suspicion that Eri had been the girl at the hotel with him is strengthened as Takahashi admits that even if the girl was her sister, he’d, “Probably …show more content…
This connection between the two plots supports the idea of Eri’s involvement with the love hotel as this is the man who beat the Chinese prostitute and fled the hotel with all her belongings. The book also includes details of a pen found in the room that matches one later used by Shirakawa.
Eri’s connection with the love hotel continues to build and her life appears to have many similarities with Alphaville, the movie the love hotel was named after. Kauro explains the movie as an imaginary city in the future where, “You’re not allowed to have deep feelings. So there’s nothing like love.” (Murakami 72.) Alphaville is basically a sanctuary to escape emotions. This is similar to the distance Eri and Mari built in their childhood. The distance between the two sisters is a huge theme in this book and Mari admits, “No, obviously we’re not” when Takahashi asks if they’d ever been close.
Along with the distance between Eri and Mari, Eri had grown up under immense pressure due to her modeling career kicking off from a very young age. This burden that Eri had been carrying for so long may have been what caused the final breakdown where she decided to she needed to rest. Eri was exhausted getting told how to look and act and had no one she felt safe to confide in besides …show more content…
When she kisses Eri, she feels herself in it because they are finally one entity and in the same reality. Mari’s love for her sister is finally shown through the physical embrace her sister had once given her and this love is what finally breaks the boundaries between them. Alphaville is restricted by no emotions, no love. Mari finally displaying this love rescues her sister from Alphaville and brings her back to the reality of emotion.
Eri’s deep sleep is her disengaging from the world and her feelings. She was under so much pressure with her modeling career and had no one to express these feelings. Eri had wanted a relationship with her sister and had expressed this to Takahashi, but never made any attempt to reconnect. Because love is the only thing that could get Eri out of this state or “wake her up”, her sleep/state of consciousness is a reference to the movie, Alphaville. The book suggests Eri’s possible connection with the love hotel in real-life, linking the two realms together.
By going to “sleep” in order to enter Alphaville, Eri is forced to avoid all emotions. Eri suppressing her emotions puts her in the actual Alphaville. Eri feeling her emotions in real-life is her in the Alphaville love
Haruki Murakami tests the boundaries between everyday Tokyo reality and a surreal realm in After Dark. The book follows two sisters who are each present in different realities. In this novel, Murakami uses sleep as a symbol of disengagement and disassociation from the world.
The plot bounces between many different locations, but centralizes around Eri’s bedroom and the love hotel, Alphaville. Takahashi discloses to Mari later in the book that his original business of being at the love hotel was not to work there, but rather, he was customer with a girl he knew. Mari’s suspicion that Eri had been the girl at the hotel with him is strengthened as Takahashi admits that even if the girl was her sister, he’d, “Probably …show more content…
This connection between the two plots supports the idea of Eri’s involvement with the love hotel as this is the man who beat the Chinese prostitute and fled the hotel with all her belongings. The book also includes details of a pen found in the room that matches one later used by Shirakawa.
Eri’s connection with the love hotel continues to build and her life appears to have many similarities with Alphaville, the movie the love hotel was named after. Kauro explains the movie as an imaginary city in the future where, “You’re not allowed to have deep feelings. So there’s nothing like love.” (Murakami 72.) Alphaville is basically a sanctuary to escape emotions. This is similar to the distance Eri and Mari built in their childhood. The distance between the two sisters is a huge theme in this book and Mari admits, “No, obviously we’re not” when Takahashi asks if they’d ever been close.
Along with the distance between Eri and Mari, Eri had grown up under immense pressure due to her modeling career kicking off from a very young age. This burden that Eri had been carrying for so long may have been what caused the final breakdown where she decided to she needed to rest. Eri was exhausted getting told how to look and act and had no one she felt safe to confide in besides …show more content…
When she kisses Eri, she feels herself in it because they are finally one entity and in the same reality. Mari’s love for her sister is finally shown through the physical embrace her sister had once given her and this love is what finally breaks the boundaries between them. Alphaville is restricted by no emotions, no love. Mari finally displaying this love rescues her sister from Alphaville and brings her back to the reality of emotion.
Eri’s deep sleep is her disengaging from the world and her feelings. She was under so much pressure with her modeling career and had no one to express these feelings. Eri had wanted a relationship with her sister and had expressed this to Takahashi, but never made any attempt to reconnect. Because love is the only thing that could get Eri out of this state or “wake her up”, her sleep/state of consciousness is a reference to the movie, Alphaville. The book suggests Eri’s possible connection with the love hotel in real-life, linking the two realms together.
By going to “sleep” in order to enter Alphaville, Eri is forced to avoid all emotions. Eri suppressing her emotions puts her in the actual Alphaville. Eri feeling her emotions in real-life is her in the Alphaville love