Identity In Murakami's After The Quake

When The ‘Self’ Isn’t Enough: Identity in After The Quake In Murakami’s short story collection After The Quake characters search for a greater sense of identity in wake of a massive earthquake. Though none of the characters focused on are directly affected by the Kobe earthquake, death and the decay of social structures are peppered throughout the collection to gauge the atmosphere of Japan at the time. This outer imagery of death and decay reveals the lack of identity within the individual to themselves. In many of Murakami’s stories, the central character looks for their place within another character because this augmented sense of doom shakes how they viewed their inherent safety. And it’s these small epiphanies that connect with the …show more content…
Like the destruction of Kobe, Yoshiya’s relationship with his own mother is strained by sexual tension and differing views which threaten their familial connection. Yoshiya closeness with his mother brings on unwanted sexual feelings so strong that he “has to keep his mother unaware of his erection” when she’s near (50). This complicated relationship with his mother is only exacerbated by her claims that Yoshiya is the son of “Our Lord”(51). What kind of Lord would make his mortal son have feelings for his own mother? Ultimately, this predicament causes Yoshiya to leave the faith and gain distance from his mother so they won’t “stumble into a fatal relationship”(50). Because Yoshiya can’t be close to his mother, he searches for a fatherly figure throughout his childhood. He asks “God, his Father” to grant him the ability to “catch outfield flies”, but when the request isn’t fulfilled he is chastised by Mr.Tabata for “pray[ing] for something concrete, with time limits”(52). Murakami plays on that cliche of fathers and sons playing catch to delineate that Yoshiya has been deprived of a physical father. Even though his mother constantly tells him that he is loved by his father, Yoshiya constructs these requests to prove to himself that he is truly loved by his father. The decay of Yoshiya’s family structure and idea of family …show more content…
Komura had his wife in “UFO in Kushiro,” Yoshiya had his family in “All God’s Children Can Dance,” and Katagiri created Frog in “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo.” But what ultimately pushed these characters into understanding their lack of identity was the loss of their safety. Only after losing these other characters could the central characters of Murakami’s collection, After The Quake, understand the profound loss that gripped Japan. And that only occurred because,to these main characters, their loss was the closest they could ever feel to empathizing with the victims of Kobe. Like them, the main characters of these three stories now understand what it’s like to lose everything one ever loved, cared for, or believed. But after losing everything, what is left of these characters? Without this idea of safety brought, their is no identity. Only