The concept of people being “split” comes up in almost every Murakami story one way or another. It’s probably my favorite recurring theme thanks to how he uses it to explore themes of love and connection. The two examples that stick in my mind come from Sputnik Sweetheart, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, and Kafka on the Shore. In the three cases, we see different explorations of this idea. In Sputnik Sweetheart we see how Miu’s struggles with her perception as a foreigner in both Japan and Switzerland caused her to split herself, with her other persona having sex with Ferdinando. The traumatic experience of watching herself have sex with someone and having no control over it causes her so much stress that she is left without a sex drive, her ability to play the piano, and her hair color. The idea hadn’t crossed my mind till I was writing this that this might not have been the second Miu’s first time with Ferdinando. It’s said that he had been kind of following her around for a while. So it could be that this second Miu had come into being while she was in Switzerland, as a result of her increased feeling of alienation, and that her alter ego had been having relations with Ferdinando for a while, and the discovery of this manifestation is what caused her to lose connection with it; like the sudden awareness of their separation causing the two of them to actually separate (Like the checking if Schrodinger's cat is alive or not causing it to enter one of the two states rather than living in superposition). In any case, the alter ego manifests from Miu’s insecurity from her foreign background.
In the Wind-up Bird Chronicles, we see a different take on the dual personality through Toru’s wife: Kumiko. Kumiko’s split is brought on by the guilt and shame she feels as a result of her sexual abuse at the hands of her brother, and the promiscuity she engaged in while married to Toru. Kumiko’s alter ego resides in the pitch-black hotel room in the other world, where she implores Toru to not turn on the light. This more clearly shows how insecurity comes into play with these doubles. Kumiko doesn’t want Toru to see this shameful side of herself, seemingly believing that this side doesn’t deserve to be with him. The idea that if she were to show herself in its entirety to Toru he wouldn’t be able to love her causing so much mental turmoil that she literally splits herself.
The final example comes from Kafka on the Shore (this one is more my interpretation). Unlike the other examples, Kafka finds himself split in two, but rather than having his second persona be an aspect of himself, it manifests as Miss Saeki’s deceased ex-boyfriend. We see the shift between the two personas most noticeably when he confronts Miss Saeki about abandoning him with his father. While Kafka seems to embody the spirit of her deceased boyfriend during their sexual encounters, it's during their emotional discussions the true Kafka comes to the surface. The two sides seem to be at war with each other, one longing to be with the girlfriend he’s been separated from, and the other a lost child just yearning for maternal love.
In all of these cases, the “other” side of the characters’ personalities symbolizes an aspect of insecurity. Miu struggles to reconcile her status as a foreigner in Japan, Kumiko feels unworthy of love due to her childhood abuse, and Kafka struggles to fill the void left by Miss Saeki’s abandonment.
Nicholas
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