Fragility and Vitality of Female Characters in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjlls.v6i6.306Keywords:
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood, Naoko, Midori, Reiko, Hatsumi, Female Actions, Fragility, Vitality, Trauma, Gender, MemoryAbstract
This paper examines how fragility and vitality operate as interdependent forms of emotional existence in the female characters of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Moving beyond readings centered on grief, suicide, memory, alienation, and unstable relationships, it challenges the binary that positions Naoko as fragile and death-oriented and Midori as vital and life-affirming. Using close textual analysis informed by feminist criticism, trauma theory, existential thought, affect theory, and Murakami scholarship, the study analyzes Naoko, Midori Kobayashi, Reiko Ishida, and Hatsumi. Fragility is understood through bereavement, abandonment, psychological pain, unequal intimacy, and fear of becoming burdensome, while vitality appears through desire, speech, care, creativity, humour, and the pursuit of connection. The analysis shows that Naoko’s passivity coexists with attempts at communication and self-awareness; Midori’s exuberance emerges from deprivation and grief; Reiko transforms psychological fracture through storytelling, music, and reciprocal care; and Hatsumi’s composure conceals the effects of emotionally unequal love. The study also considers Toru Watanabe’s retrospective male narration, which preserves women’s voices while incorporating them into his story of maturation. It argues that fragility does not erase female action, while vitality does not free these characters from vulnerability.
References
Ali, M. C., & Mousumi, F. Y. (2026). Female suicide in world literature: A comparative existential study. IPS Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, 4(2), 153–164. https://doi.org/10.54117/g90zxr11
Beauvoir, S. de. (2011). The second sex (C. Borde & S. Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1949)
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press.
Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chakraborty, S., & Sarma, H. (2024). Interpreting the erotic as an agency: A study of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities, 11(2), 63–75.
Cixous, H. (1976). The laugh of the Medusa (K. Cohen & P. Cohen, Trans.). Signs, 1(4), 875–893. https://doi.org/10.1086/493306
Cruz, E. C. (2019). Memories and mindscapes: An intertextual study of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities, 6(1), 75–86.
Dil, J. (2010). Writing as self-therapy: Competing therapeutic paradigms in Murakami
Haruki’s Rat trilogy. Japan Forum, 22(1–2), 43–64.
Dil, J. (2016). What’s wrong with these people? The anatomy of dependence in Norwegian Wood. In M. C. Strecher & P. L. Thomas (Eds.), Haruki Murakami: Challenging authors (pp. 73–86). Sense Publishers.
Freud, S. (1957). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 237 258). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1917)
Hansen, G. M. (2010). Murakami Haruki’s female narratives: Ignored works show awareness of women’s issues. Japan Studies Association Journal, 8, 229–238.
Hansen, G. M. (2017). Not just asleep, dead or muted: Images of women in Murakami Haruki. The Japan Society Proceedings, 154, 122–137.
Hansen, G. M. (2025). Criticisms of her: What says he? Murakami’s gender philosophy. In J. T. Milburn (Ed.), Haruki Murakami and philosophical concepts (pp. 55–63). Palgrave Macmillan.
Khan, A., & Sharma, S. (2025). The silent women of Murakami: Deconstructive analysis of gender’s voicelessness in Kafka on the Shore, and Norwegian Wood. International Journal of Environmental Sciences, 11(17s), 1570–1574.
LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing history, writing trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lorde, A. (1984). Uses of the erotic: The erotic as power. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (pp. 53–59). Crossing Press.
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6
Murakami, H. (2000). Norwegian Wood (J. Rubin, Trans.). Vintage International. (Original work published 1987)
Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press.
Potik, D. (2024). Existential issues in the fictional writing of Haruki Murakami. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 21(1), e1844.
Prameswari, D. A., & Marsih, L. (2023). Forms of existential crisis in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood: Toru Watanabe analysis. Prosodi, 17(2), 171–175.
Rubin, J. (2002). Haruki Murakami and the music of words. Harvill Press.
Seats, M. (2009). Murakami Haruki: The simulacrum in contemporary Japanese culture. Lexington Books.
Sneha, S. (2022). Men without women: Exploring the literal and literary phallocentrism in Murakami’s works. Creative Saplings, 1(9), 54–69.
Strecher, M. C. (1998). Beyond “pure” literature: Mimesis, formula, and the postmodern in the fiction of Murakami Haruki. The Journal of Asian Studies, 57(2), 354–378. https://doi.org/10.2307/2658828
Strecher, M. C. (2002). Dances with sheep: The quest for identity in the fiction of Murakami Haruki. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan.
Strecher, M. C. (2014). The forbidden worlds of Haruki Murakami. University of Minnesota Press.
Suter, R. (2008). The Japanization of modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States. Harvard University Asia Center.
Takeuchi, K. (2010). The power of female narration in Murakami Haruki’s Norwegian Wood [語り/騙りの力―村上春樹『ノルウェイの森』を奏でる女]. Modern Japanese Literary Studies, 83, 174–189.
Uzma, S. M., Hasan, A. M. M. M., & Rouf, M. A. (2025). Love, loss, and existential despair: The fragile relationships in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Journal of Language, Literature, Social and Cultural Studies, 3(1), 84–98. https://doi.org/10.58881/jllscs.v3i1.320
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Lamia Akter Tanni, Md Chand Ali
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles published by CJLLS are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This license permits third parties to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon the original work provided that the original work and source is appropriately cited.
