Insect Exoskeletons in Norwegian Wood- Krisha

There are two very similar insect similes that have popped up so far in Norwegian Wood that I wanted to talk about. On page 45, there is the forgotten white undershirt "waving in the evening breeze like the discarded shell of some huge insect" which is rather similar to the description of Naoko undressing, throwing her gown off "like an insect shedding its skin" on page 131. This imagery of clothes as cast aside insect bodies is unlike anything I have ever read before, and it doesn't really invoke growth imagery the way caterpillar metamorphosis does. It feels more like a nature documentary where the narrator talks about a scorpion pushing through its old hard body, exposing its vulnerable new self to the elements as it grows and hardens. I wonder if that is the intent for the Naoko scene. Maybe it is a different type of growth and development imagery that's less subtle than a butterfly transformation. It follows then to ask if the first cast aside insect shell on page 45 has anything more to it. It is in a section where Watanabe allows a firefly to fly away. There could be something going on with growth and departure.

There are also descriptions of dead cicada bodies in first chapter, and I know wonder if they were just for imagery or if the use of cicada bodies is related to the other insect similes listed above. Cast aside insect bodies seem to be a neat visual Murakami is using.