Nakata’s Story Essay

He does after all state in an interview on the authors official Murakami website (:http://www. randomhouse. com/features/murakami)) â€Å"Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can’t help but link up with all sorts of Myths. † His works explore how ancient myths can impact the lives of even a normal teenaged boy like Kafka Tamura, and how those myths interweave with Japanese culture even in today’s more Westernized Japan. Kafka’s journey begins in a library which I would interpret as being key to understanding who Kafka is. He loves reading and books and has been taught to value knowledge. In a very real sense this is true for Kafka since knowledge is the one thing that will ensure his survival on his journey of self discovery. There Kafka meets a young trans-gendered librarian named Oshima who suffers from a form of rare hemophilia. Oshima also acts as a guide who leads’s Kafka to the gates to the underworld. This is where Kafka will discover what truly happened to his mother and sister, as well as what kind of man his father really is. The final guide on Kafka’s Journey of self discovery is the Head Librarian of the Komura Library, Miss Saeki. Kafka gets the strangest feeling when he is around her that she might be his long lost mother. This is where the novel starts tying into the Ancient Greek myth of Oedipus. The tale of Oedipus( Sophocles, The Oedipus Trilogy; Project Gutenberg: http//www. gutenberg. org) is from a play by the Greek playwright Sophocles about a King who is told by fortune-teller that if his pregnant wife bears a son that the child will grow up to kill his father, and have sexual relations with his mother. The play is very tragic but Murakami’s story although tragic in some places is filled with a very subtle light. Kafka has some rather severe issues regarding the disappearance of his mother when he was four. As a four year old he was told by his father that much as Oedipus he would end up in an incestuous relationship with his mother. In a way this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for Kafka as he falls in love with Miss Saeki whom he suspects is his mother. He states to his spirit guide Crow â€Å"I am in love with Miss Saeki. † (p. 400 Kafka on the Shore: Vintage Paperbacks, 2005) and from this point on Miss Saeki becomes the focus of his obsession. Kafka feels conflicted over his mother’s abandonment. He never understood why his mother left, and apparently his father never explained to him why she left. Part of this sense of abandonment is what has lead Kafka to run away from home. Shortly after arriving at the library Kafka finds himself unconscious in a pile of brush at the side of the road with no memory of what had happened to him. He is covered in blood yet un-injured, and he calls Sakura for help. After she picks him up they have a sexual encounter at her apartment. After this he heads back to the library and decides he cannot return to the hotel he has been living in. Oshima offers Kafka the option of remaining in a cabin that Oshimas’ family owns in the mountains until Oshima can arrange for Kafka to take up residence in one of the rooms that is available at the library. It is here that Kafka begins to wonder if his experience with Sakura was the right thing to do as he suspects Sakura is his sister. Upon moving into the library Kafka hears from Oshima the tragic story of Mss Saeki’s life. According to Oshima â€Å"Miss Saeki’s basically stopped at twenty, when her lover died. No, maybe not age twenty, maybe much earlier†¦.. I don’t know the details. But, you need to be aware of this. The hands of the Japanese Dreams clock buried inside her soul ground to a halt then. Time outside, of course flows on as always, but she isn’t affected by it. † (p 161; Kafka on The Shore; Vintage Paperbacks, 2005). It is from this point that Kafka begins to develop an almost Oedipal obsession over a woman who may, or may not be his biological mother. It is also around the same time that Kafka discovers that his sculptor father has been murdered in a rather gory fashion in Tokyo. It is from here that Kafka’s tale takes on a truly dreamlike quality when he flees to Oshima’s cabin in the woods fearing that he will be accused of the murder of his father. This is what leads into the tale of the second main character.