59 pages • 1 hour read
Haruki MurakamiNorwegian Wood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Loneliness, Nostalgia, and the Legacy of Loss
In Norwegian Wood, many characters have suffered a profound loss. In their attempts to come to terms with loss, they often end up trapped in the nostalgia of memory, which leads to loneliness and lack of connection in the present. After Kizuki’s death, both Naoko and Watanabe struggle with feelings of loneliness. Watanabe feels as if death is living inside him; he describes himself as “unable to find a place for [him]self in the world” (24); and he often feels excluded, as if he is living in a different world from everyone else. However, this distance is also self-inflicted. Arriving at university, Watanabe says that the only thing he could do to forget Kizuki was “establish a proper distance between [him]self and everything else” (25). He intentionally withdraws to prevent future possible hurt.
Naoko reacts similarly to Kizuki’s death, moving to Tokyo and living “a spare, simple life with hardly any friends” (26). She and Watanabe gravitate toward one another because they understand the other’s pain, and therefore, they can soothe their loneliness without facing the seeming impossibility of communicating their feelings. In this way, Norwegian Wood shows how loss brings people together while noting that companionship alone does not necessarily equal healing.
Naoko’s fragility reflects a tragic legacy of loss: She loses her older sister and later Kizuki to death by suicide. Her sister’s death by suicide was also preceded by her uncle taking his own life, causing her father to wonder if the illness was “in [their] blood.” Naoko worries that her proximity to Watanabe will have a negative effect on him, perhaps because she has seen how the proximity to death and mental illness has affected her own life. Eventually, Naoko adds herself to this chain of loss, and Watanabe is left as the holder of grief and memory. With each new death, he feels as if a part of him has been “dragged […] into the world of the dead” (276). He will never get these parts of himself back and so embarks on the lifelong process of learning to live with his memories and loss. He describes himself as “a caretaker of a museum […] where no one ever comes, […] watching over it for no one but [him]self” (276). He has promised Naoko that he will always remember her but struggles to do so without succumbing to his grief. Writing his story down becomes a way of managing this responsibility while helping him to let go.
Sex, Love, and Silence
Norwegian Wood is a novel about the need for human connection while healing from loss. However, many characters have experienced significant trauma and struggle to truly connect with one another. In many cases, characters fail to express themselves verbally, and sex becomes a substitute for true communication or a shield to disguise unwanted emotions. Throughout the novel, characters use sex to find comfort, avoid loneliness, and disguise fear, but rarely as part of a healthy romantic relationship.
When Watanabe and Naoko begin to reconnect, their relationship is marked by long, mostly silent walks. Naoko has a “word-searching sickness” where she claims never to be able to find the right words to express herself. Watanabe feels much the same way, and they frequently “face each other over coffee cups in total silence” (27). They are especially careful never to address Kizuki or anything about their past. The first and only time Watanabe and Naoko have sex, Naoko is in a state of profound emotional distress, and Watanabe notes that sex “was all [he] could do” to calm her “state of tension and confusion” (39). Their encounter is marked less by their own connection than by the absence of Kizuki and the pain of their shared loss.
Despite her intense emotional connection with Kizuki, Naoko eventually reveals that she was never able to become aroused and have intercourse with him. Her struggle to have sex becomes representative of her inability to participate fully in the world, a struggle that began long before Kizuki’s death. The night before her suicide, Naoko tells Reiko that, although she enjoyed the night with Watanabe, she doesn’t want sex anymore; she doesn’t “want to be violated like that again—by anybody” (284). This desire could symbolize a renouncement of life; she has decided once and for all that she belongs to the world of the dead.
The free-spirited and adventurous Midori is Naoko’s opposite, which comes across in her attitude toward sex. Although she and Watanabe are largely platonic throughout the novel, she frequently shares sexual fantasies with him and is never shy about showing off her body. However, there is also some evidence that Midori uses her overt sexuality as a salve to soothe her hurt and loneliness. After the death of her father, for example, she tells Watanabe not to come to the funeral but instead asks him to take her to a “really disgusting” porno movie. She makes crude jokes and explicit references to hide her own fragility and emotional vulnerability. However, unlike Naoko, Midori is committed to living. Her sexuality reflects this vitality, while Naoko remains serene and untouchable.
Rebellion and Societal Expectations
Set against the backdrop of the late 1960s, Norwegian Wood explores changing social expectations and the effect of societal pressures on individuals. Characters find themselves trying to conform to or rebel against social norms that are in a state of flux, which complicates the individual’s search for identity. Instead of following a set path defined by traditional values, many characters make their own way in defiance of these expectations, whether by choice or by circumstance. Oftentimes, their trauma and path to healing cause them to eschew traditional social values. While the student protests that form the novel’s background represent the ineffectiveness of large-scale change, the characters’ individual journeys show that rebellion on the micro level can be far more meaningful.
The theme of rebellion is encapsulated in Midori. She defies gender roles and societal norms with her short hair, outspokenness, and overt sexuality and encapsulates the liberated spirit of the 1960s. Describing herself as “a lumberjack,” she frequently does things that girls “aren’t supposed” to do, like asking questions about sex and smoking cigarettes. She reports frequent complaints from her boyfriend, who holds more conservative ideas of gender roles. However, Midori doesn’t defy every gendered expectation—for example, she shocks Watanabe with her cooking skills. Her ability to embrace some gender roles while rejecting others illustrates a refusal conform to any expectations, whether conservative or progressive. Furthermore, Midori’s dismissal of these gender and social norms helps her build her confidence as she moves on from the trauma and loss of her past.
Watanabe rebels in his own way by withdrawing from society. He cultivates his apathy, choosing a major at random, constantly reading alone, and refusing to follow the traditional path of planning for a career. Meanwhile, his only friend at school, Nagasawa, rebels in yet another way. He studies hard to get a good job with the Foreign Ministry, but rebels through his constant womanizing and refusal to marry his girlfriend, Hatsumi.
The stigma of mental illness also plays into the theme of rebellion and societal expectations. The characters struggling with mental illness regularly describe themselves and others as “deformed,” “twisted,” and “weird.” They frequently regard their mental health challenges as a failure to meet society’s expectations. Reiko, for example, initially resists her husband’s marriage proposal and later insists that he divorce her, believing that her struggles with her mental health make her unfit for love and marriage. In Ami Hostel, Reiko and Naoko learn to see their challenges in a new way, suggesting that “one of [their] problems was [their] inability to recognize and accept [their] own deformities” (87). This philosophy represents its own sense of rebellion, encouraging the characters to heal by accepting themselves as they are instead of forcing them to conform to society’s expectations.
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