Kino Sparknotes

1153 Words3 Pages

In Murakami’s “Kino “the Image that made me piece the puzzle together was when the woman that Kino sleeps with reveals her cigarette burns, and later in the story Kino imagines the same cigarette burns on his wife’s body. Page 20 really shows the main idea of the story, which is about self-discovery, the human condition, and complacency. After Kino sees the burns on the woman he asked himself “What kind of man would inflict such pain on a woman?” This is the moment where I as a reader began to realize that the author cleverly starts giving away clues to why Kino is this way, and you begin to see how each character such as the woman has a symbolic meaning. “When he closed his eyes, he saw countless dark-brown burn marks wriggling on her pure-white back, like a swarm of worms. (Murakami, 20)” “He shook his head to dispel that image, and his wife seemed to misinterpret this. (Murakami, 20).” Kino accidentally inflicted pain on his wife by his disregard for her wants and needs, and unemotional manner. So when Kino sees his wife again in the bar when …show more content…

Kino has always shown a lack of emotion when it comes to anything, he runs away from how he really feels which ultimately hurts him and even causes his marriage to fail. Page 20 is a great example of Murakami's genius when it comes to symbolism. Kino never realized that he wasn't the only one who got hurt. Everything started to click to me as a reader, and that this book wasn't merely about some guy with a lack of emotion who got cheated on, and forgave his wife, but rather a journey of a man who needed some soul searching, which led to

Open Document