Murakami Argumentative Essay

Our lives are fast paced and filled with choices. We rarely reflect on our decisions and their consequences. Some feel satisfied with dismissing this reflection and choosing to hide whatever psychological wound and letting it build from afar. However, Haruki Murakami, in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, argues that deep understanding oneself and self-confidence requires one to confront truths about themselves and the world around them, or else self-doubt will consume them. Murakami accomplishes this by playing around with the genres of coming-of-age and literary realism, presenting contrasting ideas of Tsukuru’s self-worth, using Tsukuru’s journey to exemplify his argument and give insight to people’s capabilities through

Murakami paints Tsukuru as basically the ordinary person. In this way, Murakami, allows the audience to step into Tsukuru’s shoes, and relate to his painful past experience. By doing this, Murakami has allowed the audience to start reflecting on their own past experience, comparing it to Tsukuru’s experience. Murakami also, in the same way with the coming-of-age genre, subverts the conventions of literary realism through surreal moments in order to bring moments of clarity for Tsukuru. Haida’s story about Midorikawa, and Tsukuru’s erotic dream both show these elements, where the audience is placed inside the mind of the characters. The story’s fantastical elements stand in as the metaphors for the way both Haida’s father and Tsukuru have opened up and reflected on themselves. Murakami has stated “I don’t like the realistic style, myself. I prefer a more surrealistic style.” (Wray). Murakami’s style presents the protagonist as “the dreamer in the dream.” (Wary). Following his own conventions of realism, Murakami’s point is to illustrate that the reality of the mind is not so easily understood, and it requires one to reflect seriously about their past, so that they can fully appreciate