Analysis of Dichotomy between Dreams and Imaginations in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore

 

Haruki Murakami’s introduction

Haruki Murakami is an acclaimed Japanese novelist, short story writer, and translator. He is considered a blessing of twentieth-century Japanese literature. He has published twenty-one books of fiction, non-fiction, and a collection of short stories and has received several awards. Murakami’s writings deal with the genres of magical realism, surrealism, bildungsroman, picaresque, realism, and science fiction.

Novel’s Introduction

In ‘Kafka on the Shore’, post-World War II is discussed. It is the novel that holds conflicting ideas to decipher the complex meanings of life. The novel deals with the themes of fate, music, past versus present, dreams versus reality, conscious versus unconscious, loneliness, and many more. 

Kafka on the shore is a metaphysical tale of one protagonist Kafka Tamura- a fifteen-year-old runaway or another protagonist Satoru Nakata- who has been afflicted by the effects of World War II and now can talk to cats.

 Kafka is depicted in all the odd chapters of the novel and Nakata is narrated in the even chapters of the novel. Though they don’t meet each other in the novel it explicitly describes the relation of conscious and unconscious, respectively. In this novel, most of the people to make themselves up for the tragic circumstances of the war indulge themselves in mundane or useless activities that reflect in their dreams.

Analysis

This analysis shows two aspects:

1. Impact of World Wars claimed the inclusion of dreams and imagination.

2. To show the connection of life with reality, dreams, subconscious, and imagination.

The plot of ‘Kafka on the Shore’ is the measured unraveling of the two worlds of characters to make a single remarkable character. Murakami has related the two characters of the novel into one human being, taking into consideration the aspect of the dream, reality, and illusion i.e. Kafka and Nakata is the sole character, though they do not meet in the novel.

For Murakami, imagination or dreams in life are the most crucial prototype of life and the same applies to his characters. All of the characters believe in dreaming in life. 

This novel contains a portrait with the title of ‘Kafka on the Shore’, which gives us more than one meaning. In reality, it represents Miss Saeki’s love for her boyfriend, and in dreams and imagination, it deciphers her love for her son.

It creates a kind of ‘double image’ of the portrait. Every character has a ‘double image’, one character represents reality and its double image creates the picture of dreams and imagination. For example, Kafka and his alter-ego, a boy named Crow: and Miss Saeki with her 15-year-old living spirit.

World War has created trauma for humanity to such magnitude that we are not able to understand what the world has changed into. Our bootless thinking made us unconscious, and it turns into dreams and illusions, seeking imagination has become an integral part of life. 

We do not look for the reasons and the logic, people feel gratified solely for the things which would satisfy their consent. According to Sigmund Freud, the definition of a dream is, “Like Hippocrates, Freud believed dreams were prodromal but revealed our mental, not our physical health” In the same way, Kafka and Miss Saeki’s repressed thoughts are revealed through dreams and hallucination. 

According to Kafka’s alter ego, “You can suppress your imagination, but you cannot suppress your dreams” because it is a reflection of your thoughts. 

 Kafka wants to neglect his prophecy, which he takes as a ‘curse’, however, all the parts of prophecy come and get fulfilled in the shape of dreams. According to Oshima, “So you’re responsible for whatever happens in the dream” (173) Freud said that dreams come from your repressed unconscious thoughts. 

Freud has developed three levels of mental life i.e. conscious, pre-conscious, or subconscious, unconscious. Pre-conscious or sub-conscious is such a level of the human mental life in which your unconscious thoughts can be turned into conscious either effortlessly or with effort. Only from the level of sub-consciousness, it is possible to reach consciousness through the unconscious.

Due to the barbarity of World War, people turn themselves into hallucinations, dreams, and imagination to escape from reality. According to Nakata “Even if it is only in a dream, it is wonderful to be able to read” This shows that every man in this world dreams all the time, even in his conscious state a person has having imagination. 

At the end of the novel, everyone suffers from dreams and hallucinations Kafka is the only one who lives in the real world, all other characters who live with him, live in illusion and dreams. At one point, “Reality and dreams are all mixed up like seawater and river are flowing together. I struggle to find the meaning behind it all, but nothing makes any sense.” (366). 

The outrage of the World Wars is still influencing a large amount of the population in the 21st Century. The concept of dreams and imagination has been there since the advent of the World. But now how people think, perceive, and behave is opposite to the evolution of life.

Conclusion

The power of dreams and imagination is so intense that it is controlling human life.

1. Sometimes an individual does not control his dreams and imagination, their thoughts and environment lend them to go for dreams and illusions,

2. These dreams and imaginations are the repressed thoughts that cannot be fulfilled in their lives.

The novel is interpreted and analyzed by Avisra Ijaz, one of the writers at the School of Literature.