Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami's
Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: A Semantic Analysis1 Haruko Sera 1.Introduction After Dark is an English translation of Haruki Murakami’s Afutā Dāku. Murakami is widely read around the globe. He is now probably Japan’s best-known novelist abroad. Afutā Dāku is translated into about 20 languages. The aim of this article is to examine how emotions are depicted in After Dark. The English translator is Jay Rubin, who is the professor of Japanese literature at Harvard University. He is also the translator into English of Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, After the Quake, and 1Q84. As often seen in Murakami’s works, in After Dark, several separate storylines get intertwined little by little as the story proceeds until fi nally it turns out that they are all connected or related. First, readers meet a young girl, Mari Asai, who is sitting alone and reading a thick book in an all-night diner, Denny’s. It is almost midnight. Another protagonist, a young man, Takahashi, comes in. They seem to have met each other before. Later, after Takahashi is gone, a stout woman, Kaoru, comes in, looking for Mari. Kaoru is a manager of the Alphaville Hotel, where a Chinese prostitute has been beaten up by a client, Shirakawa. Kaoru comes to ask for Mari’s help because Mari studies Chinese at university. Readers also learn that Mari’s beautiful sister Eri sleeps deeply, almost in a coma state, in her bedroom. She has lain asleep for two months. Following the ways these people are gradually connected, the present study will examine what roles emotions play when these stories are told.
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