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. ２．Acceptance in the world Although there is no doubt that Murakami is widely accepted all over the world, 1 This paper is based on the presentation given at the PALA (Poetics and Linguistics Association) annual conference in July 2014 at Maribor University in Slovenia. 人文論集 第 50 巻 69 Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: A Semantic Analysis people are divided over the reasons for his global popularity. A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World (2008) is based on the symposium held in Japan in March 2006 for which many Murakami translators and researchers gathered. They discussed why Haruki Murakami is so widely read and accepted in many countries. 2. 1 Cultural scentlessness One of the facilitators, Yomota, a Japanese researcher, explains as follows. Unlike the works of his Japanese predecessors . Murakami’s works are not being translated and consumed overseas as those of an author who represents Japanese culture. In every society, his works are first accepted as texts that assuage the political disillusionment, romantic impulses, loneliness, and emptiness of readers. Only later do they fully realize that the author was born in Japan and that the books are actually translations. While it is true that Murakami is a Japanese writer who writes in Japanese, the cultural sensibility that he draws on, the music and fi lms that appear in his works, and the urban way of life that he depicts are all of a nature that cannot be attributed to any single place or people, drifting and circulating as they do in this globalized world. (Yomota, 2008: 34-35) Yomota interprets that it‘was in the context of cultural scentlessness . that his works crossed the national boundaries and gained a strong following overseas’(Yomota, 2008: 35-36). 2. 2 US Translators from various countries seem to basically agree with Yomota. Roland Kelts, the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the U.S., suggests that American readers share with Murakami something beyond expressions, like some elements of their dreams. They see in Murakami narratives the tones and colors of their own dreams, expressions of something lyrical yet pure, and partly ineff able. Something they know and feel, but maybe cannot explain. (Kelts, 2008: 56) 70 人文論集 第 50 巻 Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: A Semantic Analysis 2. 3 Korea Kim is the translator into Korean of Kafka on the Shore. She thinks Yomota’s keyword, cultural scentlessness,‘may be insufficient in explaining the acceptance of Murakami beyond generational diff erence’(Kim, 2008: 70). However, scentlessness still seems to play an important role as a common ground for young Koreans to share‘a cultural code’ with Murakami and to fi nd a‘revelation’ to them. While Murakami’s works are founded on an attitude of criticism toward a consumerist culture, the criticism is expressed not in the form of painful screams but in an ever- cool manner. Coupled with the effect of the sense of loss that imbues his works, I believe that his literature, which seeks ways to live in the capitalist society of the here and now rather than turning its back on reality, has off ered a revelation to young South Koreans. It may be said that they have found in Murakami a cultural code with which they can share their own confl icts and woes, a code that perfectly speaks for them. (My emphasis) (Kim, 2008: 70) 2. 4 Russia According to Ivan Logachov, a Russian translator, Russian readers may be able to ‘resolve’ their own problems by reading Murakami’s works. Of course, Russian readers live far away from where Murakami’s protagonists live, but‘cultural scentlessness’ helps them feel as if they were in Murakami’s world. The protagonist’s self-awareness, and his loneliness arising from social alienation, an issue frequently addressed by Haruki Murakami, is one that is vitally important and familiar to Russian society today. Because life in Russia has lately become insecure and precarious, just as in Murakami’s world, Russian readers may be able to discover their own identity and resolve problems involving personal relationships by reading Murakami’s works. His protagonists, who embody contemporary society, off er answers to a variety of compelling questions, such as what human beings are about and what we are living for. (Logachov, 2008: 74-75) 2. 5 Mirror neurons: empathy and emotion Richard Powers, an American writer, tries to explain Murakami’s international 人文論集 第 50 巻 71 Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: A Semantic Analysis success focusing on‘the mirroring neuron’, one of the most remarkable discoveries in neuroscience. Although further researches are needed in order to know more about mirror neurons, and Powers’ analysis is suggestive rather than rigorously theoretical, his explanation seems insightful and convincing. One explanation for his astonishing international success may be this deep attunement to the strangeness of the distributed and modular brain―a strangeness not culturally constructed but in itself the fundamental transcultural and universalizing condition. (Powers, 2008: 49) If his work could be said to have one overriding theme, one irresistible attraction, it must be this deep and playful knowledge: No one can tell where“I” leaves off and others begin. The maze of mind will always stand between us and the real. But the inescapable cavern of the brain leaves a single way out: the empathetic leap, transnational commerce, the mirroring neuron. (Powers, 2008: 54) Koji Sato, one of the symposium programme offi cers, pays attention to the important role of‘heart’ , or emotion. He thinks the‘issue of ties of the heart’ might be explained by the existence of mirror neurons. I also felt strongly that the real reason behind the Murakami boom is his fundamental engagement with matters of the heart as a central literary theme. With regard to this issue of ties of the heart, I would like to thank Richard Powers for shedding light on the universal appeal of Murakami’s works using the cutting-edge science of mirror neurons. (My emphasis) (Sato, 2008: 127) Readers around the world can easily feel sympathetic to Murakami’s protagonists, fi rstly by‘cultural scentlessness’, as Yomota points out. Not only feeling sympathetic, however, people also need to be empathic to fi nd an answer to their own questions. The empathic leap through mirror neurons, as Powers explains, could shed light on the ties of the heart, as suggested by Sato’s comment quoted above. The‘ties of the heart’ can be considered to be equivalent to emotional involvement. 72 人文論集 第 50 巻 Depictions of Emotions in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: A Semantic Analysis The following two chapters focus on emotional expressions found in some literary works, based on my previous studies and in Murakami’s After Dark. ３．Semantic analysis of Snow County and other stories using Wmatrix 3. 1 Wmatrix This section examines depictions of emotions in works of literature, based on sematic analysis using a Web-based corpus analysis and comparison software, Wmatrix. Wmatrix uses USAS2 to tag texts semantically. Table 1 shows the USAS tagset.3 The present study is going to focus mainly on two categories, E: emotion and X: psychological actions, states and processes. The latter category is related to expressing emotions. B: the body and the individual and H: architecture, housing and the home, will also be briefl y mentioned. Table 1 USAS tagset A B C E general and abstract the body and arts and crafts emotion terms the individual F G H I food and farming government architecture, housing money and commerce and public and the home in industry K L M N entertainment, sports life and movement, location, numbers and and games living things travel and transport measurement O P Q S substances, materials, education language and social actions, objects and equipment communication states and processes T W X Y Time world and environment psychological science and technology actions, states and processes Z names and grammar The following is the list of subdivisions of the E: emotion category.