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Murakami Haruki’s Short Fiction and the Japanese Consumer Society By © 2019 Jacob Clements B.A. University of Northern Iowa, 2013 Submitted to the graduate degree program in East Asian Language and Cultures and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. ___________________________ Chair: Dr. Elaine Gerbert ___________________________ Dr. Margaret Childs ___________________________ Dr. Ayako Mizumura Date Defended: 19 April 2019 The thesis committee for Jacob Clements certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Murakami Haruki’s Short Fiction and the Japanese Consumer Society _________________________ Chair: Dr. Elaine Gerbert Date Approved: 16 May 2019 ii Abstract This thesis seeks to describe the Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki’s continuing critique of Japan’s modern consumer-oriented society in his fiction. The first chapter provides a brief history of Japan’s consumer-oriented society, beginning with the Meiji Restoration and continuing to the 21st Century. A literature review of critical works on Murakami’s fiction, especially those on themes of identity and consumerism, makes up the second chapter. Finally, the third chapter introduces three of Murakami Haruki’s short stories. These short stories, though taken from three different periods of Murakami’s career, can be taken together to show a legacy of critiquing Japan’s consumer-oriented society. iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my committee, Dr. Maggie Childs and Dr. Ayako Mizumura, for their guidance and support throughout my Master's degree process. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Elaine Gerbert her guidance throughout my degree and through the creation of this thesis. I would like to thank my partner Talia Wolken for her unending support and encouragement even when the work became stressful. In addition, I would like to thank my parents for their encouragement throughout the process, even when they did not fully understand what I wanted to write about. And last, I want to thank Eire, for sacrificing several days of long walks, belly rubs, and games of fetch so that I could write. iv Table of Contents Introduction: Murakami Haruki’s Short Fiction and the Japanese Consumer Society...................1 Chapter 1: Japan’s Commercial Society, A Brief History..............................................................5 The Meiji Period.................................................................................................................6 Post-War Era.....................................................................................................................12 Success of the 1955 System..............................................................................................14 ANPO Treaty and Vietnam War Protests.........................................................................17 GNPism and Economic Shocks........................................................................................24 The 1980’s........................................................................................................................27 The 1990’s........................................................................................................................29 Recent Developments.......................................................................................................31 Chapter 2: Murakami Haruki’s Depiction of the Self and Critique of Commercial Society........36 Murakami’s Postmodernism.............................................................................................37 The “Other Side” and the “Self”.......................................................................................39 The Self and “Narratives”.................................................................................................42 Group Narratives and the Japanese Consumer Society....................................................47 Asserting Identity in the Consumer Society.....................................................................55 Chapter 3: Criticism of Japan’s Consumer Society in Murakami Haruki’s Short Fiction...........62 “The Strange Library” ......................................................................................................66 “The Dancing Dwarf” ......................................................................................................72 “An Independent Organ” .................................................................................................75 Conclusion: Murakami’s Global Appeal as a Function of His Commercial Society Critique.....81 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................87 Appendix A: Murakami Haruki’s Selected Chronological Bibliography.....................................89 v Appendix B: A Short Biography of Murakami Haruki................................................................91 vi Introduction Murakami Haruki’s Short Fiction and the Japanese Consumer Society Among critics and fans, Murakami Haruki is known for the international appeal of his writings. Though exotic to the Western reader, Murakami possesses a generally laid back and cosmopolitan style that seems less exotic than that of other great Japanese novelists. This style has made his novels and stories successful around the world, whether the reader has any interest in Japan or not. This thesis seeks to discuss one of the reasons for his appeal: the critical view of the materialistic and commercialistic modern Japan that is present in many of his critically- acclaimed novels. Additionally, this thesis argues that such criticism can be found in his short fiction as well, though his short fiction is usually more experimental in nature. By exploring three of his short stories, “Odoru kobito (The Dancing Dwarf),” “Toshokan kitan (A Tale of the Strange Library,” and “Dokuritsu Kikan (An Independent Organ),” one can create a full picture of Murakami’s critical view of Japan and its commercial society. This thesis begins with a brief history of Japan’s economic rise and the effects that a consumer society has had on succeeding generations of contemporary Japanese and left-wing politics. As Matthew Stretcher points out in his book Dancing with Sheep, the Japanese had a series of national goals that they were able to identify with during the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods (72). One of the major criticisms of modern society in Murakami’s novels is that the national goal for the Japanese today is consumption of consumer goods to facilitate economic growth. His criticism is that this goal is not satisfactory because it is caught up in a system of control—a complex system of large corporations, mostly conservative political figures, and bureaucrats who enact policy changes that often benefit organizations over everyday people. The Japanese consumer society that Murakami criticizes in his fiction has roots in 1 Japan’s modern history. During the Meiji and Taisho eras, the consumer society developed as a response to the alienation felt by those who had left their home villages for the first time and moved to rapidly urbanizing cities for better opportunities. After the Pacific war, the consumer society became the nation’s way through the reconstruction and the elite’s way to assert Japanese control over the Asian mainland. Consumerism allowed the Japanese economy to prosper and gave Japanese businesses the impetus to exploit the mainland under the guise of modernizing the Asian mainland and producing goods for Japanese consumption. To the everyday citizen, the work in the consumer society led to affluence, but consumption of those consumer goods gave them nothing to identify with. In the 1960s, the reaction to this lack of identity was violent, but after the 60s the reaction was one of mere apathy. The collapse of the Bubble economy in the 1990s revealed to the Japanese many of the social problems that are on the horizon for Japanese society, but since then little has been done politically to address these problems. In response to this consumer society are the works of writers like Murakami Haruki. After a brief history section, this paper moves into a literary review of Murakami Haruki’s work, focusing on two of his major themes. First is the exploration of self and individual identity, second is the criticism of Japan’s consumer society through the assertion of individual identity. Murakami’s great project in his fiction is to explore the mind and show how one can assert an individual identity in Japan. This is an action that Murakami feels is important in the Japanese consumer society. As will be discussed in the second chapter, these ideas are closely intertwined in both Murakami’s writing and in critical studies of his work. In asserting their individual identities, Murakami’s characters are making an overt political gesture, rejecting the consumer society at-large and embracing the peripheralization and alienation that comes with this rejection. Central to this reading of Murakami Haruki’s fiction is the idea of identity. What is 2 identity? This thesis argues that in his fiction, Murakami is criticizing the consumer system for replacing and preventing the development of individual identity. However, it is arguable that the consumer system creates identity. Consumers identify themselves with all types of consumer products. Sports fans travel far and wide to support the team they

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