I know almost everything I have written about in this class is in regards to women and Murakami's portrayal of women. But, this blog post especially I cannot stay away from the topic, being that we read so many female oriented works.
While I do not think the portrayal of females is bad by any means and in some cases such as Sleep's main character and Reiko from Norwegian Wood, the female protagonist is written wonderfully, Murakami's patterns on writing the troubles of women is a bit concerning. After reading about the various females of Murakami, they can be separated into pre-made tropes. The first is the Murakami woman who has been involved in and is haunted by a rape incident. This includes the woman from Sleep, Shiro's fake rape claim, Reiko's rape by her student, the white haired woman of Sputnik Sweetheart, Creta Kano, etc. The second trope are women who are married and this splits off into two subtypes. The first type are women who have children and then resent them. In this category is the protagonist from Sleep again, the woman from the The Ice Man, and the woman from the Little Green Monster if you subscribe to the idea that the green monster is her child, possibly an unwanted child. The second subtype are women who have not had children yet and by not putting their "duties" in the forefront of their mind seem to be punished. This category includes the wife from Tony Takitani who loved her clothes too much, the wife from Drive my Car who would cheat constantly, and the girl from Barn Burning who lived life for herself and had no mind for settling down.
While it is not a major problem that they are split into these minimal categories, Murakami male protagonists themselves fitting into one category, the problem is the meaning that these categories hold. Each trope is relating a woman back to men. By having a woman's rape still have major power over her (it causing Watashi of Sleep to get in her car and want to get murdered) it is a parallel of man, or the man that did it, still having power over her. And similarly, with the married women who live to have children, the man has power over her through their offsprings who represent their fathers (in both The Ice Man and Sleep). She is unhappy, living in the world her husband prefers. Contrarily, the women who allow themselves to indulge in their wanted worlds and fantasies, like Tony's wife and Kafuku's wife (I absolutely do not support her cheating!) are killed off young, leaving us with their husband, the man now telling their stories through the male lens. By killing off rebellious and confident women, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes it seem like these kinds of women are not allowed in Murakami's world.
However in recent years, this has started to dismantle slightly. Glimmers of this started with Midori all the way back in Norwegian Wood who was based off a real woman. And now we have Misaki from Drive my Car, the hunchback from Samsa in Love, and Aomame of 1Q84 (from our brief discussion of her). It seems Murakami has begun to truly think about women in his stories as protagonists, capable of various storylines independent of male impact and influence. This may be way too much and too serious for a blog post but all these ideas have been constantly circling in my brain for the past few classes, building up on each other and where else would I be able to put them at this point?
- Anna-Maria Marinescu
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