Locating The ‘Other Half’: A Psychoanalytic Reading Of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka On The Shore

Abstract

Haruki Murakami’s novel, Kafka on The Shore, narrates the story of two characters in alternate chapters. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old boy who is on the run from his home in Tokyo. He has given himself the name Kafka, and exhibits an alter ego named Crow (the meaning of Kafka in Czech). The story of Kafka is akin to that of King Oedipus: his father has prophesized that one day Kafka would kill him and sleep with his mother and sister. On his way to the Takamatsu province, Kafka meets Sakura, a girl he immediately deems to be his sister. At the Komura Memorial Library in Takamatsu, he becomes acquainted with Oshima, the Assistant Librarian and Miss Saeki, the Head Librarian. The relationship that Kafka forges with the other characters, especially with Sakura and Miss Saeki, both in the conscious and unconscious level, becomes significant in the fulfillment of his father’s prophecy. The novel itself presents the notion of a time warp - there has to be a confrontation of the past in order to reconcile with the present scenario. As Kafka asserts, “…things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.”