Comparison Of Names In Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World

Shakespeare once had Juliet ask, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet” (II, ii, 46-47). In Romeo and Juliet, names bound you to a family history, but nowadays names can signify more than ancestry. Most writers have some basis or meaning behind their characters’ names, but Murakami, makes it appear as though all the characters in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are nameless. But he did gives names to some. The alternating story between the Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World creates an interesting narrative but it also creates a division when it comes to names. In the Hard-Boiled Wonderland section, the narrator is presented without a name causing a lack of an identity

and sense of self. Whereas in the End of the World the characters’ names are based on their role and this helps them build an identity for themselves. Murakami shows how names make the character, especially the narrator, by giving them an identity and a sense of self. Moreover, those without a name lack an identity and fail to see others for who they are.
In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, the narrator lacks a name, and therefore is unable to create an identity for himself. He has a role of a Calcutec, but is not called “the Calcutec”, he does his job and what is required of him but this does not define him. He is divorced, often drinks alcohol, but in his life he has “nothing of any value” (141). When the Semiotecs break their way into his apartment, he tells them there is nothing there because there is nothing that really means anything to him. He simply exists, nothing gives him a sense of self; he sees himself as a “perfectly ordinary guy” (138). However, after realizing he was going to be stuck in the realm of his core consciousness, he questions himself, asking, “I already was myself, wasn’t I?” (341). This question shows his uncertainty because he was not really anyone. He has no sense of self. He was “merely a vessel” used to test out an experiment, a rare exception who was going to face the consequences (115). The only thing giving him any sense of individuality is his “emotional shell” (192), which is ultimately what saves him from death but it never meant anything to the narrator, it was just how he was, he never saw that as being part of what characterized him. Even the girl who worked at the library found him “hard to figure out” (94). There are bits and pieces of what could make his identity, but nothing makes him whole. He does not have the conscious capacity to characterize himself for who he is because he lacks a name, and his inability to define himself renders others unable to define him.
Moreover, not only does the narrator in Hard-Boiled Wonderland lacking a name leave him without an identity, he then perceives others based on certain characteristic traits, rather than based on how they perceive themselves. He characterizes the girl and her grandfather based on his perceptions rather than their identity, but in doing so he creates a name for them as well as an identity. When the narrator first meets the professor’s daughter, he was fixated on her body and her beauty. Throughout the novel, he repeatedly refers to her as the “chubby girl” because this is the trait associating who she is to him. And so rather than how she may see herself, the reader follows the narrator’s perceptive and identifies her based on this specific characteristic. A possibility remains that there may be discrepancies between who the “chubby girl” sees herself as compared to the identity given to her by the narrator but since her name is not given in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, the name given to her by the narrator is what constituents her identity. The narrator also characterizes her grandfather by a name, but he differs from his granddaughter because he also has a name for himself.
The narrator names him the “old man,” but he is also called the “biologist”, and the “professor.” These names describe the same elderly male scientist but differences between these names depict how the unnamed narrator’s perspective does not take into account how other characters view themselves, and it is because the narrator lacks a name that he cannot understand nor can he label others accordingly based on their sense of self.

After the Hard-Boiled Wonderland narrator’s initial visit with the “old man” (26), he later refers to him by the name of “the Professor” during a conversation with the Semiotecs (138). This, however, was not a name created by the narrator for the narrator later continues to characterize him by his old age. It was the Semiotecs who acknowledged his identity, calling him by the name of “the Professor” and this is important. The Semiotecs have a name, and because of this name, they have an identity and a sense of self of who they are so they are able to view others based on their sense of self. When the narrator met the “old man”, he introduced himself as “a biologist” (27) and later grouped himself with “scientists” (50). He viewed himself as a member of the scientific community and identified with them, giving himself a conscious awareness of who he was. The Semiotecs were able to recognize this and therefore addressed him as the “professor” but the narrator is unable to grasp this concept because he lacks a name and therefore an identity and a sense

of self, which is why he continues to address him as the “old man.”
In contrast, when the narrator is assigned a name of “the Dreamreader” in the End of the World section of the novel, he begins to create an identity for himself (39).

The Gatekeeper tells him “you no longer have a name” but this is ironic for the narrator is able to identify with this name, creating an identity for himself that he accepts (39). The role of “the Dreamreader” may seem to be only a role to the Gatekeeper but it is more than that, it is a name. This name gives the Dreamreader a sense of self. He gives up “the light of day”, surrendering himself to darkness so he can take on the role and the name of the Dreamreader (40). When he learns all he must do is read old dreams from skulls, he feels there is no point in doing so, that “[dream reading] should have a purpose” (59). He is unaware, but being a “Dreamreader” gives him purpose. The name gives him the identity of a Dreamreader, he embodies his job and it is this name, which allows him to separate from his Shadow at the end of the novel. He “[surrenders] his shadow” after entering the Town and his mind is thought to be with the shadow, however, his conscious awareness of self remains with him (62). As the novel progress, he remembers aspects of his former life, such as singing and the accordion proving he did not lose the little pieces of himself, which he had before. His promise to escape with his Shadow changes because of his name. The Dreamreader is the only one who can help the Librarian find the pieces of

her mind, for her identity to be assembled together, and this is why he stays. The shadow tells him how “people’s minds are transported outside the Wall by the beasts” and this Town is the creation of the Dreamreader (335). Nevertheless, he has become who he is because of his name and he cannot abandon his name, and the “people and places and things [he has] created” (399) and this is why despite everything the shadow says, he stays.
In this core consciousness, the Dreamreader also manages to grasp the concept of sense of self and is able to view other characters based on their names and identities rather than his perceptions of them. He recognizes the Gatekeeper for who he is, but he still attempts to ask questions the Gatekeeper cannot answer. Nevertheless, the Dreamreader understands his role, for he is the one who controls what happens to those who enter the town and he is the one who enforces the belief that no one leaves the town by describing the Wall’s immaculate state. He views the Librarian the way she sees herself, as a helper to the Dreamreader, but also as a person who has not reached her full capacity of being. Her mind is missing, leaving gaps in her identity and the memories of her mother escape her but they still linger. The Dreamreader becomes aware of this, leading him to help her find the fragments that will make her whole.
It is with this name he is able to create an identity for himself and have an awareness of self and therefore is able to view others as they view themselves. Without this name of the Dreamreader, he never had a sense of self. There were parts of him that would create his identity, as shown in the Hard-Boiled Wonderland but without a name, he was never complete. Moreover, without an identity he failed to see others for who they were and how they saw themselves. Murakami created this novel with parallel stories but really, it was this one story about how a name changed an unnamed narrator whose life was coming to the end, and when it ended, he had a name and that has made all the difference.