I think “Sleep” might be my favorite of Murakami’s short stories. The amount of layers he was able to pack into just 35 pages is remarkable. I think two of the most important talents an author can master are efficiency and restraint, both of which are perfectly displayed here through his ability to both tell a compelling story about domestic ennui and sexual trauma depending on your reading.
Anyhow the aspect I want to focus on is the exploration of trauma throughout the piece. Through my reading, Boku’s inability to sleep seems to be a dissociative state that is likely the result of some kind of latent trauma. With the freedom that comes with her new free time, Boku begins to slip back into her childish habits. This kind of regression could be seen as her inability to cope with the events, causing her to find comfort in the past.
The reason I think this all stems from a sexually traumatic event, despite never explicitly using the word “rape”, is because of her aversion to men, the hallucination she has, and her college boyfriend. While more ambiguous, she makes a point of the fact that her husband is “strange-looking”, telling us that even prior to her sleeplessness she had an aversion towards him. It's also important to note that referring to him as “strange-looking” is pointedly different from saying he's unattractive, especially since she says that he’s not exactly ugly. Rather than finding him repulsive, she just can’t seem to connect with his face, saying that she can’t draw him from memory despite their long marriage. This alienation might be something that she has with any man that she’s in a relationship with.
As for the hallucination, the fact that the beginning of her sleepless nights comes from an old man pouring water on her feet could have a couple of meanings. Obviously, the hallucinations of being a man further support her aversion to them, but then there’s the pitcher. She describes it as almost phallic, saying it’s a “tall, narrow, rounded thing that shone white.” If we’re to go with that thread, the fact that the man is pouring water on her feet then makes some sense, as washing feet is a fairly intimate thing, and for this strange man to be doing it to her without her consent we can see the links to the sexual trauma she might’ve endured.
And finally, there’s the mention of the college boyfriend. Near the end of the story, Boku mentions a college boyfriend she had who tried pressuring her into sex, and though she says she denied him, she doesn’t go into details of the aftermath, simply saying “I can’t recall his face. It seems to have happened such an incredibly long time ago.” Seeing as she mentions that her previous bout with sleeplessness also came during college, it's not a stretch to believe that it might have also happened as a result of this event.
Now, if we see this view as plausible, I want to talk about the most interesting coping mechanism that Murakami lays out: Boku’s parking lot visits. During one of her visits to the parking lot, a police officer warns her of the recent murder/rape of a man and a woman, respectively, in this lot. Despite hearing this, Boku then proceeds to go back to the lot, dressed as a man. I thought this was a really clever but subtle way of showing us Boku’s struggle to accept what happened to her. By going back to this spot Boku seems to be trying to rewrite her story so that she could have been the man in the situation, and end up being killed rather than raped. It’s so tragic and emotionally compelling thanks to its simplicity. It's really just emblematic of what Murakami does best. Also, the story is so economic with its language that I don’t even think I’m close to actually having outlined all of the different symbols that he uses either, despite only being a short story.
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