Murakami Relationship Between The Narrator And His Wife Essay

Murakami’s use of exploring the relationship between the male narrator and his wife depicts the entrapping standards which society requires of both genders and suggests a general dissatisfaction with the system. This is shown through the narration through a male gaze, Murakami’s use of symbolism, dialogues between the narrator and his wife, the narrator’s interactions with other women, and the ending suggesting a failure to learn from previous failures.

Murakami utilises a first person narrator, whom appears to be unreliable, hence providing the reader with a biased perspective, as shown by his depiction of women. When the narrator’s wife calls him with a job prospect, since he has unexpectedly quit his job and has been on the look out for …show more content…
The narrator speaks of how he irons shirts, by “[dividing] the shirt-ironing process into twelve steps total: from (I) Collar (-- removed HTML --) , to (12) Cuff (-- removed HTML --) .” The use of a strict numbering system suggests a desire to exert control, perhaps in order to placate his anxieties, as he mentions that he irons when he is “unsettled”. Since he ironed shirts after speaking to the woman on the phone, it may suggest that he is irritated that he is unable to maintain control, as exhibited by how the woman was able to remain anonymous yet sound familiar and hang up on him, cutting him off. Additionally, the narrator repeatedly refers back to a bird which his wife calls a “wind-up bird” sitting “in the trees of the neighbourhood to wind things up”. It seems as if he feels controlled by an external being, where his role in life, and his role in his relationship, cannot be altered by him, potentially allowing him to redistribute any blame regarding issues in his relationship. This may implicitly reference gender roles, which are external forces that individuals subconsciously abide by as it is normal conduct. He also finds a fascination with “a stone figurine of a bird with wings outstretched…to take flight at any second.” Murakami seems to have used the symbolic image of being stuck and unable to escape to reflect on the narrator’s situation of being …show more content…
The story begins with the narrator alone “in the kitchen” and ends up with him alone in the kitchen “drinking [his] beer” whilst his wife is in the living room, “sobbing away”. The circular feeling of the story due to the narrator being alone in the kitchen in the beginning and ending seems to mimic the lack of progress in the narrator’s relationship with his wife, as they have failed to communicate throughout the story, clearly shown in the final scene. As the narrator drinks his beer ignoring his sobbing wife, it likely depicts a lack of compassion between husband and wife, something one would expect a relationship to entail, since normally a husband is assumed to try and placate his wife. Consequently, this suggests a deficiency in their communication, perhaps highlighting problems with the roles typically required of both genders in a relationship as both individuals have ended up in an undesirable position by trying to fulfil society’s required roles: alienated without the support of family members. The narrator also seems to summarise his reflection of his day in one sentence: “What an impossible day it’s been!” Although the narrator has exclaimed this, it does not appear that he cares to do anything about this impossible day, choosing instead to chug a bear in the kitchen, as if trying to escape his problems rather than