The (Un)familiar Unconscious: Clarifying the “Uncanny” in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84

The (Un)familiar Unconscious:

Clarifying the “Uncanny” in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84

Nanne de Viet

10007415

Master Thesis Comparative Literature

Student:

Nanne de Viet

Studentnumber:

10007415

Thesis supervisor:

mw. dr. H.H. Stuit

Second Reader:

dhr. dr. J.G.C. de Bloois

Table of contents

Introduction 3

1. The return of the repressed: 8 Interpreting the strange events in the story of Aomame. 2. The themes of the other: 28 Following the problematic part of Todorov’s theory

3. The uncanny effect of 1Q84: 46 Addressing social commitment through the fantastic.

Conclusion 55

Introduction

Over the years, Japanese bestselling author Haruki Murakami has become well known for his novels in which he continuously intertwines the everyday lives of the main characters of his stories with supernatural elements. In doing so, Murakami tends to leave both his main characters and the readers in doubt about the nature of these elements. In light of this, 1Q84 (2009-2010) could be seen as one of Murakami’s typical works. The almost 1000 pages long story contains a vast amount of estranging elements, which causes a constant feeling of doubt in the main characters, because these elements only change minor details about their daily lives. This makes them wonder if they could have entered a different kind of reality than the one they lived in before, or if there might be something wrong with their state of mind. Because this indicates that there are no implications given on how to interpret the nature of these elements, the reader is also kept in the dark as far as this is concerned.

In 1Q84, the supernatural elements consist of the occurrence of certain strange events in the furthermore realistic setting of Murakami’s novel. In this thesis, I will analyze the possible meaning of this combination between the mundane and the magical present throughout the story of 1Q84. I will interpret the strange events as part of what Freud calls the “uncanny,” and try to clarify the emergence of this psychoanalytical concept in the stories of the main characters, by treating 1Q84 as a fantastic text. In this way, I aim to argue that the feeling of doubt in the story world of

1Q84’s main characters, which is caused by the combination between the mundane

and the magical, eventually results in a reading experience that creates a feeling of kinship for people around the world. On the basis of this way in which the strange events that occur in the realistic setting of Murakami’s novel are likely to affect the readers, I will conclude that 1Q84 addresses social commitment.

1Q84 was originally published in two volumes in Japan, which were released

on the same day in May 2009. Book 1 and 2 are set in Tokyo in the year of 1984 and are about Tengo Kawana and Masami Aomame, two former elementary-school classmates who both turn thirty in the course of the story, and appear to live a solitary live as a result of their distorted childhood. In these two volumes, Aomame’s story alternates with Tengo’s, causing the novel’s plot to unfold in parallel. It becomes clear only gradually that their stories are interwoven, and that Tengo and Aomame

have never stopped thinking about each other after having shared an intimate moment in an empty classroom when they were ten years old.

In the story of Aomame, the feeling that she might have entered a different kind of reality starts after she descended an emergency stairway off the elevated highway in Tokyo, because her taxi got stuck in traffic. Having reached street level, she immediately notices some small changes in the world around her. Not long after this, she also discovers that she cannot recall certain major news events that happened in Tokyo the past two years, and that there are two moons in the sky. Tengo seems to be transported into this different kind of reality through rewriting Air Chrysalis, a story that was submitted for that year’s new writers prize by a seventeen-year-old girl named Fuka-Eri. Air Chrysalis is about “Sakigake,” a controversial religious cult that Fuka-Eri escaped from at the age of ten. While secretly rewriting this story, Tengo, just like Aomame, starts to notice certain changes in his surroundings, and also

discovers the second moon. This makes him wonder if it might be possible that he has entered the world of Air Chrysalis, which is about a reality with two moons in the sky.

Eventually, the members of Sakigake find out that Tengo has participated in the publishing of Fuka-Eri’s story. Because Air Chrysalis reveals information about their cult against their will, they express their discontent about the publication of the story by threatening Tengo through a private investigator called Ushikawa Toshiharu. Aomame has also managed to arouse the anger of Sakigake in the course of the story, by murdering Fuka-Eri’s father Tomatsu Fukada, who is the leader of the cult. As a result of this, she goes into hiding in a safe house somewhere in Tokyo.

While sitting on the balcony one evening, Aomame spots Tengo on the playground in front of the apartment building in which she is hiding. At this point in the story, it has already been clarified that the occurrence of the strange events has awaken the desire in both Tengo and Aomame to finally start looking for each other after their last encounter as ten-year-old children. In other words, Aomame and Tengo not only experience certain changes in the world around them in the year that they seem to have entered a different kind of reality, but also notice that something starts to change within their inner psyche. However, when Aomame reaches the playground in front of her safe house, Tengo has already disappeared.

Originally, Murakami intended to consider the second volume of his novel, in which Tengo and Aomame have not succeeded in finding each other yet, as the final

part of the story of 1Q84. A year later, however, he decided “to add several hundred more pages” (Anderson). In book 3, Murakami includes the storyline of Ushikawa Toshiharu, who he has already introduced in book 2. In this part of 1Q84, Murakami tells the stories of his now three main characters again in separate chapters.

Eventually, Ushikawa appears to be the “tool” that helps to bring Tengo and Aomame back together. Even though their search for each other is completed in this way, and the story thus seems to achieve a sense of closure, the question whether the strange events that the main characters of 1Q84 have experienced are “real” or if they were only part of their own imagination, remains unexplained for both the characters and the readers of Murakami’s novel once book three has come to and end.

Aomame’s and Tengo’s mutual longing for each other that arises through the strange events in the novel, seems to be related to a return of certain repressed feelings from their childhood. In relation to this, I will argue that 1Q84 includes an emergence of the uncanny. The strange events in Murakami’s novel furthermore occur in a realistic setting, and the writer keeps the reader in the dark about the nature of these events. As such, 1Q84 meets all three of Freud’s conditions for the

emergence of the uncanny in literary texts.

However, since the emergence of the uncanny in both storyworlds is

characterized by a feeling of doubt, whereas Freud suggests that the uncanny effect is destined to cause fear, Freud’s definition of the uncanny can only be used to a certain degree in my analysis of the possible meaning of the combination between the

mundane and the magical in 1Q84. By introducing Todorov’s notion of the “fantastic” at this point in my analysis, I will be able to continue with my interpretation of 1Q84 as a literary text that includes an emergence of the uncanny, because his theory allows me to consider the uncanny as something that causes a feeling of doubt. By

illustrating that Todorov’s theory of the fantastic can be described as “a structuralist re-working of Freud’s attempt in The Uncanny to establish the conditions for this psychoanalytic concept in literature,” (Borghart and Madelein) I will argue that the fantastic and the uncanny can indeed be reconciled. Combining these two theories all in all enables me to clarify the uncanny in Murakami’s novel, through treating it as a fantastic text.

After having established this in my first chapter, I will demonstrate that Aomame’s story is part of the genre of the fantastic in its pure state. I will come back to this definition of the fantastic at the beginning of my second chapter, when I

discuss that the story of Tengo can also be classified as part of this specific literary genre. By treating the stories of 1Q84’s main characters as purely fantastic texts on the basis of this observation, and using it to analyze the combination between the mundane and the magical that underlies the emergence of the uncanny, I will thus be able to focus on the feeling of doubt present throughout the story world of

Murakami’s novel.

In my second chapter, this focus on the feeling of doubt includes addressing the ambiguous nature of repression with the help of some of Freud’s and Fenichel’s psychoanalytical insights. I will relate this to 1Q84 by stating that the question whether the return of the repressed in the stories of Tengo and Aomame is caused by the changes in their surroundings, or the other way around, is left unanswered. Because of this, I will argue, the main character’s ambiguous perception of the strange events described, is shared by the readers of Murakami’s novel.

Relating the uncanny effect in the story world of 1Q84 to the likely impact of the emergence of the uncanny on the readers of Murakami’s novel, indicates that I follow Todorov’s thought that certain textual elements are bound to evoke a particular reaction in the readers of a story that contains supernatural events. This part of

Todorov’s theory is, however, considered to be problematic, due to the implicit mixing of textual elements with reader response theory that characterizes it. Jose Monléon has phrased the consequences of this, which has been summarized by Cua Lim Bliss in Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic, and Temporal Critique. According to Bliss, Monléon notes that the way in which Todorov resides “the

weight” of the definition of the fantastic in the reader, is bound to create tension “with the underlying structuralist premises” of Todorov’s theory (Bliss 103).

By focusing on the so-called “themes of the other” in the stories of Tengo and Aomame, I will demonstrate in my second chapter in which way it is however

possible to follow Todorov’s thought that certain textual elements are likely to have a particular effect on the readers of a fantastic story. As already mentioned, in the case of 1Q84 this effect includes the readers sharing the ambiguous perception of the strange events that is experienced by the main characters.

I will use this suggestion about Todorov’s theory in my third chapter, when I analyze the positive results of this feeling of doubt about the nature of the strange events on the characters and the readers of 1Q84. By referring to Rebecca Suter’s The

feeling of doubt that they share with the main characters of 1Q84, become estranged from cultural norms. This will lead to the above-mentioned statement that the combination between the mundane and the magical in 1Q84 evokes a reading experience that creates a feeling of kinship for people around the world. Clarifying the uncanny in the story world of the main characters by treating Murakami’s novel as a fantastic text thus provides the specific understanding of possible social

1. The return of the repressed: Interpreting the strange events in the story

of Aomame

Introduction

I will start this first part of my analysis with a description of Aomame’s daily life, followed by an outline of her transportation into a world that seems to be both mundane and magical. In this way, I give an impression of the realistic background against which the strange events in her story are taking place. On the basis of the combination between the familiar and the unfamiliar that this implies, I will introduce Freud’s psychoanalytical concept of the “uncanny.” In doing so, I will argue that the story of Aomame includes an emergence of the uncanny, because it meets all three of the conditions under which the uncanny, according to Freud, can emerge in literary texts.

After having established this, I will begin to investigate what meaning can be ascribed to the combination between the magical and the mundane in this novel, by illustrating that the emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story seems to be related to what Freud calls a return of the repressed (249). In doing so, I will analyze the way in which the strange events seem to remind Aomame of certain complexes from her childhood that had been estranged by a process of repression. Freud links this kind of return of something that has been familiar during an earlier stage of life, to the aspect of fear in the uncanny.

Interpreting the emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story on the basis of these psychoanalytical insights by Freud indicates, however, that the impact of the emergence of the uncanny in this particular text does not correspond to Freud’s ideas about the uncanny effect. The emergence of the uncanny in the story of Aomame does not lead to fear, even though it seems to be related to a return of the repressed. Rather, the uncanny causes a feeling of doubt in Aomame, which eventually results in a positive change in her story world. Because I assume that the emergence of the uncanny will affect the readers of 1Q84 in a similar way, which I will substantiate in both my second and third chapter, I consider that the effect of the emergence of the uncanny on the readers of Aomame’s story is not characterized by fear either.

As a result, it becomes problematic to relate the occurrence of the strange events in the story of Aomame to Freud’s insights about the uncanny, when taking the

effect of these events in her story into account. This implies that Freud’s theory is only helpful to some extent in my attempt to enhance an understanding of the combination between the mundane and the magical in the stories of 1Q84’s main characters. Moreover, it is explained in this way that the interpretation of the uncanny that the story of Aomame suggests, differs from the way in which the uncanny is defined by Freud. In order to clarify this different notion of the uncanny that seems to be present in Murakami’s novel, I will introduce Todorov’s theory of the fantastic. Using both Freud’s and Todorov’s theory in my analysis of the strange events that occur in the realistic setting of Murakami’s novel, will help me to ensure the best possible understanding of 1Q84, which is the eventual aim of this thesis. This includes my definition of the social relevance of Murakami’s novel.

When introducing Todorov’s theory in this chapter, I will mention the three conditions that a purely fantastic text has to meet according him, and argue that the feeling of doubt that characterizes the fantastic, distinguishes it from the literary genres that Todorov calls “the uncanny” and “the marvellous.” Next, I will relate these three conditions to Freud’s conditions for the emergence of the uncanny, and illustrate why “the fantastic is defined as a special perception of uncanny events” (Todorov 91). With this, I exemplify in which way it is possible to reconcile the uncanny and the fantastic when analyzing a literary text.

Finally, I will discuss that Aomame’s story should be classified as a purely fantastic text. I will refer back to this at the beginning of my second chapter, when I illustrate that the story of Tengo includes an emergence of the uncanny as well, and is also part of the genre of the fantastic in its pure state. This allows me to clarify the uncanny in the story of Aomame, in relation to the uncanny in Tengo’s story, by treating both stories as purely fantastic texts.

The transportation into the unreal

At age twenty-nine, Masami Aomame lives alone in a humble one-bedroom

apartment in one of Tokyo’s suburbs, where she spends her days reading, exercising and listening to music. When not at home, Masami, who in the book goes by her last name Aomame, works as a fitness-instructress at an exclusive sports club, where she teaches classes in muscle training and martial arts. Aomame started working at the exclusive sports club after the death of her close high school friend Tamaki Otsuka, who committed suicide at the age of twenty-six after being in an abusive relationship

for several years. When Tamaki died, Aomame decided to quit the job she had at the time, and, after having secretly murdered Tamaki’s husband, start afresh at the exclusive sport’s club.

Besides her activities in physical exercise and martial arts at the sport’s club, Aomame also managed to establish several classes in women’s self-defense

techniques. One of the participants in these classes is an elderly lady who is referred to as “the dowager of Willow House.” The dowager has experienced a similar loss like Aomame’s when her daughter committed suicide after years of domestic violence during her marriage. Just like Aomame, she took revenge on the abusive former husband, though not by harming him physically, but by destroying him socially. A year after the death of her daughter, she also decided to set up a private safe house in an old apartment building on her own property, where she started to provide shelter for the victims of domestic violence.

During one of her self-defense classes, the dowager intuitively picks up that Aomame also has a special interest in protecting women against this kind of men, as a result of which she eventually tells Aomame about the safe house, and invites her to join her in her mission. This concerns the dowager requesting Aomame to start murdering the type of abusive men that she calls “parasitical,” who have to

“disappear” in order to be stopped. Despite some initial hesitation about the obvious gruesome nature of the dowager’s request, Aomame quickly decides to help the dowager with her mission, and starts killing parasitical men by using a specially designed ice pick, which makes it seem as if her victims died of a natural cause.

One early April afternoon in 1984, Aomame is on her way to one of the men she plans to murder, when the taxi that is driving her to this “appointment,” as she calls it herself, gets stuck in traffic on the elevated Metropolitan Expressway in Tokyo. Because the man concerned is only in town for a very short period, and Aomame wants to get her job done before he checks out of his hotel, it is crucial that she arrives at the hotel in time. When the traffic hardly seems to move for quite a while, the taxi-driver suggests that Aomame could descend a nearby stairway that leads from the expressway’s emergency turnout down to street level, from where she could take the subway to her destination. Aomame does not need much time to decide to opt for this solution, even though the driver has stated that: “It’s not something I can openly advise you to do” (Murakami 7). Right before Aomame gets out of the car,

the taxi driver makes the following additional remarks concerning her decision to descend the emergency stairway:

You’re about to do something out of the ordinary. Am I right? … [A]nd after you do something like that, the everyday look of things might seem to change a little. Things may look different to you than they did before. … [B]ut don’t let appearances fool you. There’s always only one reality. (Murakami 9, emphasis in original)

Aomame’s thoughts about how to interpret these remarks, and her departure out of the car, coincide respectively with the final movement and the ending of

Sinfonietta, a symphony by Czech composer Janáček that plays on the radio while

Aomame’s taxi is stuck in traffic. Even though Aomame does not consider herself a classical music fan, she instantly recognizes the piece after hearing only the first few bars, which catches her by surprise. Moreover, “the music gave her an odd, wrenching kind of feeling” (Murakami 6). This feeling is described as “a sensation that all the elements of her body were being physically wrung out,” but it is not painful or

particularly unpleasant (Murakami 6). Having difficulties understanding what is going on, Aomame asks herself, while still in the taxi: “could Sinfonietta actually be giving me this weird feeling?” (Murakami 6)

This weird feeling continues once Aomame has left the car, descended the stairs and hurries to the nearest subway station, when she notices a slight change in the uniform of a policeman that passes her by, who also seems to be carrying a different model of pistol. Aomame remembers clearly that until that morning, “policemen were still wearing the same old stiff uniforms they always had, and still carrying the same old unsophisticated revolvers,” (Murakami 6) which she considers to be very strange. Especially because she is a devoted newspaper reader and could have never missed such an important change that should have undoubtedly been featured in the press.

Freud’s definition of the “uncanny”

Up to this point, Murakami has created a situation that is characterized by a

certain strangeness, even though the described events take place in a realistic setting. This combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar can be related to Freud’s notion

of the emergence of the “uncanny” in literary texts. In The Uncanny, Freud states that the strange and uncomfortable feeling that characterizes the uncanny, and that

eventually leads to fear, is caused by precisely this kind of situation in which things are familiar, but somewhat unfamiliar at the same time. This aspect of fear in Freud’s definition of the uncanny is decisive in the way in which I will analyze the strange events in Murakami’s novel.

With this interpretation of the element of fear in the uncanny, Freud argues against the definition of the uncanny that Jentsch formulates in On the Psychology of

the Uncanny. David Morris, in “Gothic Sublimity” summarizes the issue as follows:

For Freud, the uncanny derives its terror not from something externally alien or unknown but -on the contrary- from something strangely familiar which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves from it. (Morris 307)

Wanting “to proceed beyond the equation of unheimlich with unfamiliar” (221), Freud thus states that the origin of the uncanny is situated in a person’s unconscious, or, in other words, in something that was once familiar, rather than in a situation that is uncertain because it is unfamiliar, like Jentsch claimed. The ambiguity of the word

heimlich itself is important here:

The word heimlich is not unambiguous, but belongs to two sets of ideas, which without being contradictory are yet very different: on the one hand, it means that which is familiar and congenial, and on the other, that which is concealed and kept out of sight. (Freud 224-5)

The idea that the uncanny suggests both familiarity and concealment, combined with Schelling’s formulation of the uncanny as “the name for everything that ought to have remained hidden and secret and has become visible,” (Freud 226) leads Freud to conclude that:

This uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old- established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression. (Freud 241)

This clarifies why Freud argues that the uncanny derives its terror not from something externally alien, as stated by Jentsch, but from something that is strangely familiar. After all, Freud considers the uncanny to emerge on the basis of a return of things that have been repressed in an earlier stage of life.

Freud’s theory can all in all be captured by three conditions for the emergence of the uncanny in literary texts. The first condition comprises the occurrence of “a strange, inexplicable phenomenon in an everyday setting,” (Borghart and Madelein). The other two conditions include Freud’s opinion that the uncomfortable feeling that accompanies the uncanny, should be caused by a return of something that has been repressed, and the fact that the reader should be kept in the dark by the writer about the nature of the uncanny events that take place in a literary text. I will now use this explanation of Freud’s theory to argue in which way it can be stated that there is an emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story.

The emergence of the uncanny in the story of Aomame

Looking at the opening scenes of 1Q84 that introduce the strangeness in Aomame’s story in more detail, clarifies that the combination between the familiar and the unfamiliar is not only present on the basis of the occurrence of strange events in a realistic setting, but that it is also related to the return of something that has been estranged by the process of repression. This applies to the fact that Aomame’s instant recognition of Janáček’s Sinfonietta after hearing only a few bars, which seems to implicate that this piece has in some way been familiar in an earlier stage of her life, gives her an odd and wrenching kind of feeling. In this sense, it could be stated that Aomame’s puzzled reaction to her recognition of Sinfonietta, symbolizes the way in which an uncanny feeling can arise on the basis of a return of the repressed.

Up to this point, however, it is not clear yet if Aomame has in fact repressed something, and if, or how this is related to Janáček’s music. The answer to this becomes apparent in the course of Aomame’s story when it appears that Sinfonietta, as well as the other various estranging elements faced by Aomame, all lead back to things from her past that she has repressed, which is in line with Freud’s thoughts on the uncanny. This is why I interpret Aomame’s recognition of Sinfonietta, and the odd feeling that this, and the music itself gives her, as a first indication of the way in which the estranging events that await her once she leaves the taxi, should be understood. The fact that Aomame’s taxi-driver warns her about what could change

about the everyday look of things after she has climbed down the emergency stairs coincides with this interpretation of Sinfonietta as a kind of presage of what is yet to come.

Moreover, the scene in which Aomame’s taxi is stuck in traffic implies that the different estranging elements Aomame starts facing from that day on, are not one-off events, but indicate that more strangeness is ahead of her. The taxi, in this sense, can be seen as the tool that transports Aomame into a different reality. After all, before Aomame entered the taxi, there was nothing odd about the world around her, but right after she left the car, in which the atmosphere was already quite uncanny, she enters a world that is characterized by the occurrence of strange events. The scene that follows the events in the taxi, in which Aomame passes the different looking policeman, immediately confirms this. Based on this happening, and Aomame’s reaction to it, I will now argue that Aomame’s story also meets Freud’s final condition for the emergence of the uncanny in literary texts.

In a conversation with two men that Aomame meets in a bar after she successfully completed her mission of that day, it is again confirmed that the

policemen’s uniforms and the type of guns they carry changed, but not that day or that week, but already two years ago. Because of this, Aomame starts questioning her own observations:

Am I going crazy? … [I]’m sure I never heard a thing about them getting rid of every single revolver, but I also can’t believe that these two middle-aged men are wrong or lying to me. Which means I must be mistaken. (Murakami 58)

Her confusion increases while she is watching the late-night news that same evening, and finds out that she is also not aware of the fact that the Soviet Union and the United States began constructing an observation post on the moon together. The next day, Aomame goes to the library to go through all the editions of an important Japanese newspaper published in the period between September to November 1981, and learns that there is a total of three major news events that she cannot recall. The fact that she can clearly remember all the other events and incidents that took place around the same time, confuses her tremendously.

to remake reality, has erased certain events “so cleanly, leaving everything else in tact,” (Murakami 196) and if so, what these particular events could have in common. As a result of this, Aomame thinks of another possibility that she calls her “second hypothesis”:

Maybe I can look at it this way–the problem is not with me but with the world around me. It’s not that my consciousness or mind has given rise to some abnormality, but rather that some kind of incomprehensible power has caused the world around me to change. (Murakami 196)

Initially, this hypothesis feels more natural to Aomame than her first thought, because “she could not find in herself a gap or distortion in her mind” (Murakami 196). In spite of this, she is aware that her second hypothesis might only be self-serving, because it could be seen a way to justify her own madness.

Still, because she considers her second hypothesis the most compelling one, Aomame decides that she has to start acting according to it. This does not mean, however, that she accepts that the estranging events she is experiencing are caused by the seemingly changed world around her, which, she discovers, is also characterized by the appearance of a second moon. Rather, she remains in doubt about the nature of the events, which she demonstrates by stating “either I’m funny or the world’s funny, I don’t know which” (Murakami 111).

This is confirmed by the fact that Aomame gives the newly changed world that she supposes to live in, in the year of 1984, the name “1Q84,” where the Q is for question mark, because it is “a world that bears a question” (Murakami 110). Besides, “in Japanese, the number 9 is pronounced like the English letter Q” (Anderson). Finally, this title also refers to George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is about a “future” society that is dominated by strict government surveillance, under the influence of a Party-leader called “Big Brother.” The 1Q84 references to

Nineteen Eighty-Four, include a similarity between the Sakigake cult and its leader,

and Orwell’s dystopian futuristic image of the world.

Up to this point, the reader, just like Aomame, does not know either whether the world, or Aomame is “funny.” This corresponds to Freud’s statement that this kind of uncertainty, which is created by keeping the reader “in the dark for a long time about the precise nature of the conditions he has selected for the world he writes

about” (251), is another condition for the emergence of the uncanny in literary texts. In other words, it is confirmed that, apart from the estranging events that take place in a realistic setting and that indicate a return of the repressed, there is an emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story from this perspective as well.

I will now go deeper into the nature of the uncanny in Aomame’s story, by illustrating that the return of the repressed in this story seems to include Aomame being reminded of certain infantile complexes through the occurrence of the strange events. In doing so, I will focus on the fact that this kind of return of the repressed, that underlies the emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story, does not lead to fear. Rather, I will exemplify that the return of the complexes from her childhood through the occurrence of the strange events, not only makes Aomame question if she, or the world around her is funny, but also causes a feeling of doubt as to whether she is satisfied with the solitary life that she leads. On the basis of this, I will conclude that it becomes problematic to relate the occurrence of the strange events in the story of Aomame to Freud’s insights about the uncanny, when taking the effect of these events in her story into account.

Interpreting the uncanny events in the story of Aomame

As already mentioned, I consider the odd feeling that Aomame experiences when she listens to Sinfonietta and instantly recognizes it, as an indication for the way in which this, and the rest of the strange events that will befall her, could be interpreted. This odd feeling that Sinfonietta arouses in Aomame, seems to be related to a return of things from her past that she has repressed:

It felt as if something had awakened a memory that had been asleep inside me for years. … [W]hich means I might have had a deep connection with that music at some point in my life. (Murakami 108)

Freud divides this return of things from someone’s past into either the revival of repressed “infantile complexes” by a certain impression, the renewed confirmation of “primitive beliefs” we have surmounted, or a combination of both (Freud 249).

As for Aomame, it seems as if the uncanny events she experiences are related to the revival of infantile complexes that she has repressed. As a young girl, Aomame had to live conform the strict rules of her family, who were members of a Christian

sect called the “Society of Witnesses.” Aomame had great difficulties with the fact that this distinguished her from the rest of her “normal” classmates and especially detested Sundays, because her mother then forced her to go door to door with her to preach, which she considered to be embarrassing. At the age of ten, Aomame decided to abandon her faith, which led to her being disowned by her family. Since that time, Aomame has practically been on her own. The only pleasant memory she has from her childhood is briefly holding the hand of her classmate Tengo Kawana, whom she has loved ever since, even though they never spoke a word and have not seen each other in twenty years. In the following paragraphs, I will argue that the estranging elements that Aomame starts to experience once she seems to have entered the year of 1Q84, all, in a way, relate to this unpleasant childhood.

Besides Aomame’s reaction to Sinfionetta, which refers back to a connection that she must have had with the music at some point in her life, her description of the second moon that is situated next to the normal moon, is explicitly related to

childhood: “hanging next to it was a small, green, lopsided moon, nestled shyly by the big moon like an inferior child” (Murakami 211). When looking at this in relation to Aomame’s youth in terms of her life compared to that of her classmates, and the disapproval by her parents once she decided to abandon her faith, it can be stated that the second moon reminds Aomame of her troubled identity as a child. The following claim seems to demonstrate that she actually does not want to be reminded of this: “on the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon” (Murakami 213). This, together with the fact that the presence of the second moon initially gives Aomame an uncomfortable feeling, confirms my earlier statement that the nature of the uncanny events that took place so far in Aomame’s story, seems to be

characterized by a return of infantile complexes that have been repressed.

The same happens when Aomame meets a ten-year-old girl named Tsubasa for the first time in the safe house that was founded by the dowager. Tsubasa has been severely raped while living in the cult Sakigake. Here, the connection between an estranging event, which is in this case the confrontation with Tsubasa’s unusual and distant behaviour as a result of the abuse, and Aomame’s own childhood is even more explicit:

Seeing Tsubasa reminded Aomame of herself at that age. My own will made it possible for me to escape back then. But when you’re as seriously wounded as this girl, it may not be possible to bring yourself back. You might never be able to return your heart to its normal condition again. The thought sent a stab of pain through Aomame’s chest. What she had discovered in Tsubasa was herself as she might have been. (Murakami 242-3)

The fact that Aomame experiences a stab of pain in her chest when she is reminded of herself as a ten-year-old girl, again seems to confirm that it can be concluded that the uncanny events that took place so far in Aomame’s story, are related to an initially unwanted return of repressed infantile complexes.

It does strike me that it appears as if Aomame, in relation to the presence of the second moon, claims that it is undesirable for the heart to be unlocked, whereas she, in the case of Tsubasa, who’s “heart seemed to have been shut up inside a small, dark room with a locked door, a room located in another place,” (Murakami 241) finds it regrettable that the heart of this girl might never be unlocked again. This seems to be the first time that Aomame grasps that she might be more like Tsubasa than she has realized up till then. After all, Aomame lives a very isolated life, especially since the death of her close friend Tamaki, after which she only has meaningless sex with men and never “unlocks” her heart for anyone.

From the moment that Aomame realizes that she is, in a way, similar to Tsubasa, she gradually starts longing for Tengo, who has never left her mind, more and more. It seems as if being reminded of her troubled identity as a child, made her understand that she does not want her heart to never be unlocked again. These feelings conflict with the solitary life that she has led for the past twenty years, by which she starts questioning whether she is in fact satisfied with this kind of lifestyle. She also begins to feel as if the supernatural elements are leading her somewhere. This is indicated in relation to Janáček’s Sinfonietta:

I have to get a hold of a recording of Janáček’s Sinfonietta. … [I]t makes me feel connected. As if the music is leading me to something. To what, though, I can’t say. (Murakami 617)

At this point in the story, it has already become clear that Tengo had a special connection with Sinfonietta in his childhood, by which it can be stated that the scene

in the taxi could indeed be interpreted as a kind of presage of the things that will occur in the course of Aomame’s story.

The same appears to be true when Aomame sees Tengo again for the first time in twenty years as a result of the presence of the second moon:

He was sitting on a playground slide, looking at the sky, staring hard at exactly the same things she was looking at –the two moons. Yes, it is possible for us to see the same things. (Murakami 555)

Besides the fact that this again confirms that the scene in the taxi in retrospection foreshadows the reunion of Aomame and Tengo, this quote goes against Freud’s thought that the uncanny is something that is strictly personal. In my second chapter, I will demonstrate that the way in which the stories of Tengo and Aomame are related, in fact allows the uncanny to be linked to something that is similarly experienced by several people, as it is indicated in the above mentioned quote.

What this analysis of the relation between the strange events and Aomame’s repressed infantile complexes clarifies about the effect of the emergence of the

uncanny in this story, is that it is not characterized by fear. Aomame does feel slightly uncomfortable about the strange events and experiences some physical reactions when they remind her of her childhood, but she never appears to be afraid. Rather, she experiences feelings of doubt, both with regard to the question whether she, or the world around her is funny, and to what extent she is in fact satisfied with the kind of life that she leads. This indicates that it becomes problematic to relate the occurrence of the strange events in the story of Aomame to Freud’s insights about the uncanny, when taking the effect of these events in her story into account.

In order to still be able to analyze the presence of the mundane and the magical in Murakami’s novel by considering Aomame’s story to be literary text that includes an emergence of the uncanny, I will now introduce the literary genre that Todorov calls the “fantastic” and argue that the story of Aomame is a fantastic text. Todorov’s ideas about the fantastic can be related to Aomame’s story, because this specific literary text corresponds to Todorov’s insight that uncanny events “are a necessary condition” for the fantastic (Todorov 91), but that “fear does not necessarily need to be present in the fantastic text” (McDonald 17). Moreover, Todorov explicitly focuses on the presence of a feeling of doubt in stories that contain uncanny events,

which he considers to be crucial when classifying a text as fantastic.

Todorov’s definition of the “fantastic”

In The Fantastic, Todorov discusses three literary genres that are characterized by the presence of estranging, or supernatural events: the uncanny, the marvelous and the fantastic. He makes a distinction between these genres on the basis of the different ways in which the characters in a story, as well as the readers of the text, react to the presence of the supernatural events. If the reader decides, with regard to the kind of manifestation of supernatural events in a story, “that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena” (Todorov 42) we, according to Todorov, “enter the genre of the marvelous,” (42) or in other words, that of “the supernatural accepted” (42). The contrary can be said of the uncanny, which Todorov calls “the supernatural explained,” (42) because we enter this genre if it is decided that “the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described” (Todorov 42). Finally, we enter the genre of the fantastic when the reader does not make one of these decisions but stays hesitant about the nature of the supernatural events. This is why Todorov states that “the pure fantastic (…) remains unexplained” (52).

Overall, in order to classify a text that includes supernatural events as a purely fantastic text, Todorov draws up three conditions that it has to meet, which have been summarized by Borghart and Madelein:

Firstly, the reader has to experience the world described as a possible, realistic world, yet, in this world there must be doubt: should the occurrence of strange events be explained naturally or supernaturally? … [S]econdly, this doubt may be experienced and expressed by a character. This condition is optional. … [T]he third condition implies that all allegorical and poetic readings of the text are to be rejected. (Borghart and Madelein)

Todorov is aware of the fact that the fantastic in its pure state can also be present in only a particular part of a narrative, because at a certain moment, “the reader makes a decision even if the character does not; he opts for one solution or the other, and thereby emerges from the fantastic” (41).

uncanny” and “the fantastic marvelous.” According to Todorov, the fantastic uncanny includes stories in which the readers, with regard to the events that seem supernatural, “receive a rational explanation at its end” (44) on the basis of certain text immanent features, while the fantastic marvelous is defined as “the class of narratives that are presented as fantastic and that end with an acceptance of the supernatural” (Todorov 52) in a likewise manner.

By introducing Todorov’s theory after having concluded that an interpretation of the uncanny as fear falls short when trying to ascribe a possible meaning to the combination between the mundane and the magical in Aomame’s story, I have

indicated that I want to clarify the emergence of the uncanny in Murakami’s novel, by treating 1Q84 as a purely fantastic text. In line with this, I will now show how

Todorov’s conditions for the classification of a text as purely fantastic, can be related to Freud’s conditions for the emergence of the uncanny in literary texts. This will clarify that the theory that Todorov formulates in The Fantastic can be described as “a structuralist re-working of Freud’s attempt in The Uncanny to establish the conditions for this psychoanalytic concept in literature,” (Borghart and Madelein) on the basis of which I will argue that the fantastic and the uncanny can indeed be reconciled when analyzing a specific literary text. After having established this, I will end this chapter with discussing that the story of Aomame should be classified as part of the fantastic in its pure state. In this way, I will illustrate that it is justified to treat Murakami’s novel, as far as the part that includes the story of Aomame is concerned, as a purely fantastic text.

The fantastic in relation to the uncanny

Looking at Todorov’s first condition for the classification of a text as purely fantastic in relation to the two Freudian conditions that deal with the appearance of estranging events in an everyday setting, and the author leaving the reader in the dark about the nature of these events, indicates that the uncanny and the fantastic can both be defined as a specific kind of reading experience. However, Freud considers fear to be the characterizing factor of this reading experience, whereas Todorov states that the fantastic relies on a feeling of doubt about the nature of the supernatural that is shared by the characters and readers of a story. Besides this, Todorov argues in The Fantastic that it is possible for the characters and readers to reasonably explain the uncanny, which is indicated when he makes a distinction between the fantastic in its pure state,

the fantastic marvelous and the fantastic uncanny. Freud on the other hand, states that the uncanny arises on the basis of the return of “repressed childhood memories or surmounted beliefs from the primal childhood of the human race” (McDonald 32).

Despite these contradictions, Todorov does accept “the possibility of Freud’s definition being true,” (McDonald 32) when he, by close reading a story by Poe, concludes that “the sentiment of the uncanny” can indeed originate in relation to “certain themes linked to more or less ancient taboos” (Todorov 48). This causes him to state the following: “If we grant that primal experience is constituted by

transgression, we can accept Freud’s theory as to the origin of the uncanny” (Todorov 48). It is implied in this way, that from Todorov’s point of view, it is indeed possible to read and interpret a fantastic text with the help of Freud’s psychoanalytical

insights. By relating Freud’s notion of the uncanny to Todorov’s ideas about the fantastic in this way, it is thus demonstrated how a psychoanalytical concept like the uncanny can be incorporated within a literary genre. In other words, I have introduced Todorov’s theory, and combined it with Freud’s definition of the uncanny, to suggest that the uncanny and the fantastic can be reconciled when analyzing a specific literary text.

I will now extend this statement by illustrating why Todorov considers the fantastic to be a special perception of uncanny events. Here, my focus will be on his ideas about how the possible transfer of the character’s feeling of doubt and

potentially fear, which is caused by the emergence of the uncanny, onto the reader of a fantastic story, is related to the sort of narrator that is present in this kind of text. I will use this to argue that Aomame’s story, despite the fact that it includes a kind of narrator that undermines the fantastic according to Todorov, should still be classified as a purely fantastic text.

The fantastic defined as a special perception of uncanny events

In his focus on the reading experience that he relates to the fantastic, Todorov writes in detail about the different ways in which a reader can perceive the uncanny events that are part of a literary text. This leads to his statement that “the fantastic is defined as a special perception of uncanny events” (91). In other words, Todorov considers the fantastic to be “an effect of the language of a text,” on the reader (McDonald 14). This effect includes an uncanny feeling that arises in the reader of a text that includes supernatural events, because he or she, just like the “hero” of the story, experiences a

feeling of doubt “as to whether the events are real or not” (McDonald 30). According to Todorov, the reader will experience this feeling of doubt, when s/he, through his/her reading of “the verbal, syntactic, and semantic structures in a text,” constitutes “the ambiguous vision” of the text’s narrator (McDonald 14).

What is problematic about this part of Todorov’s theory is that he seems to mix his thoughts about the kind of textual elements that are present in fantastic stories, with the role that he ascribes to the reader’s response. After all, Todorov “attempts to explain the system of language that makes the literary effects of fantasy possible by relying on the verbal, syntactical, and semantic features of language,” but at the same time states that it is the reader who ultimately decides whether a text is fantastic (McDonald 9, 10). This indicates that the idea of the fantastic is, in the end, profoundly subjective. Still, Todorov presents his theory as if we can assume that the presence of certain text-immanent features is likely to generate the response that includes the ambiguous vision “of the strange events described,” (Todorov 46) which is shared by both the readers and characters and that in the end determines whether a text should be classified as fantastic or not.

I will come back to this in my second chapter when I suggest in which way it is in fact possible to believe that certain textual elements are bound to have a

particular impact on the reader of a story that contains supernatural events. I will use this part of my analysis in the final chapter of my thesis, when I elaborate on what the ambiguous perception of the described strange events in 1Q84, that is shared by its readers and characters, might say about the presence of the combination between the mundane and the magical in Murakami’s novel.

As mentioned before, a purely fantastic text is, according to Todorov, characterized by a feeling of doubt that persists the entire story and is not, as in the case of the fantastic uncanny and the fantastic marvelous, resolved by respectively a rational explanation, or an acceptance of the supernatural. It also has become clear at this point that this hesitation should, in the case of the fantastic in its pure state, be transmitted onto the reader of the story. With regard to this, Todorov considers the kind of narrator that is present within a story that includes uncanny events, as the textual element that determines whether or not the reader experiences “the hesitancy which Todorov feels to be the main requirement of the fantastic text” (McDonald 14).

Todorov prefers the presence of a first-person narrator, because it is easy to identify with the hesitation that is expressed by this type of narrator. He relates this to

the fact that a first-person narrator is also a character, by which this type of narrator is able to lie (Todorov 85). As a result of this, “this narrator’s discourse has an

ambiguous status,” whereby readers are likely to experience the feeling of doubt that is expressed by a represented narrator that says “I” (Todorov 85). On the other hand, when a supernatural event is reported by a non-represented, or “heterodiegetic” narrator, there would thus “be no occasion to doubt his words” (Todorov 84). This causes the reader to accept the supernatural, by which we, according to Todorov, will immediately enter the marvelous.

When looking back at the scenes in which Aomame first starts to feel doubtful about the nature of the uncanny events that she has experienced after descending the emergency stairway, it appears that these feelings are expressed by her in the role of a represented narrator who says “I.” The majority of her story is, however, told by a heterodiegetic narrator. From Todorov’s point of view, Aomame’s story, then, could only be classified as fantastic as long as she tells about her uncanny experiences herself. I, however, disagree with this because the hesitation about the nature of the uncanny events, which is experienced by the “hero,” and which persists in the entire narrative, can, despite the presence of this heterodiegetic narrator, still be transmitted onto the readers of Aomame’s story. In other words, I feel as if the presence of the heterodiegetic narrator who narrates by far the largest part of Aomame’s story, does not rule out the possibility to classify the entire story as purely fantastic.

In “The Fantastic in Russian Romantic Prose,” Claire Whitehead argues that it is possible to assume that a story which includes a heterodiegetic narrator can be classified as part of the fantastic in its pure state, when the narrative of this type of narrator is not free of hesitation either. This goes against Todorov’s conviction that “a reader cannot doubt the information provided by a heterodiegetic narrator,” which “would lead to a story falling into the category of the marvelous, rather than the pure fantastic” (Todorov 108). Whitehead states, however, that it is possible for a

heterodiegetic narrator to become unreliable when the hesitation becomes part of his narrative on the basis of the presence of so-called modalisation phrases. The presence of this kind of phrases, “contravenes the expectations concerning this narrator’s ability to give full and reliable information” (Whitehead 114). This is also the case in the story of Aomame.

Not long after Aomame became aware of the fact that she cannot recall certain important news items, she discovered the second moon in the sky. Aomame sees the

normal moon and next to it a smaller, strangely shaped moon with a greenish color, which she finds hard to accept. This discovery makes Aomame question again whether she, or the world around her is “funny.” When this is the case, the hesitation is expressed by Aomame in the role of a narrator-character that says “I.” However, in the next chapter of her story, the feeling of doubt about the existence of the second, strangely shaped moon, is also expressed by the heterodiegetic narrator. This appears when it is stated that: “if the number of moons had in fact increased to two, it would be strange for her not to know that” (Murakami 212). The use of the words “in fact” indicates that the non-represented narrator does not know either whether the second moon is actually there, or if it is only part of Aomame’s distorted mind.

Something similar happens when Aomame meets Tsubasa for the first time, and is confronted with the strange kind of absent impression that she makes. The heterodiegetic narrator phrases this as follows:

Whatever her mind was able to grasp, her living emotions appeared to be somewhere else. … [H]er heart seemed to have been shut up inside a small, dark room with a locked door, a room located in another place. (Murakami 241)

As we learn later on in 1Q84, there is a special reason for the strange impression Tsubasa makes, and even though this reason is again something that might exist only in the main characters’ minds, the heterodiegetic narrator should normally already know about this. In other words, nothing should “seem” or “appear” to this narrator (Whitehead 114).

The hesitation present throughout Aomame’s story is, all in all, constituted and maintained by the presence of a represented and a non-represented narrator both classified as unreliable, respectively due to “personal involvement” and “limited knowledge” (Rimmon-Kenan 101). From this point of view, Aomame’s story could be considered as part of the fantastic in its pure state, even though Todorov excludes the option to classify a text as purely fantastic when it involves the presence of a heterodiegetic narrator. This feeling of doubt causes Aomame’s story to provide an instable “system of references,” (von Mücke 9) to its readers, which prevents the reader to take a distance “from the disturbing experience by recasting it into a process of allegorical translation of textual clues, or by focusing on specific poetic devices

that could be tied to an external authorial function” (von Mücke 9). In other words, the story of Aomame provokes a kind of reading that is neither “poetic” nor

“allegorical” (Todorov 31).

When combining this with the observation that the strange events in the story of Aomame occur within a furthermore realistic setting, it is clarified that Aomame’s story, on the basis of the presence of these text-immanent features that Todorov links to the fantastic, can indeed be classified as a fantastic text. Moreover, the feeling of doubt in the characters and readers maintains, because the reunion of Tengo and Aomame at the end of book 3 of Murakami’s novel still does not answers the question if the year 1Q84 only existed in the character’s imagination or that it was “real.” It can thus be concluded that 1Q84 is part of the fantastic in its pure state. In my second chapter, I will go deeper into to the role of the reader’s response when it comes to the classification of 1Q84 as a purely fantastic text.

By arguing that 1Q84 is part of the genre of the fantastic, I go against Jonathan Tuttle, who in his article “Neither Here Nor There” states that “1Q84 doesn’t follow the rules of any one genre,” and that the question if the “malevolent forces,” which cause the occurrence of the strange events in 1Q84, “are fictional or nonfictional is less important to Murakami and his characters than whether they make for a good story” (29). After all, I argue that precisely the feeling of doubt about the fictional or non-fictional nature of the strange events that Tuttle refers to in this quote is a decisive factor in my argument that Murakami’s novel follows the rules of the genre of the fantastic.

Conclusion

I started this chapter by arguing that there is an emergence of the uncanny in

Aomame’s story. My focus in this was on the return of the repressed that seems to be related to the occurrence of certain strange events in this text. Analyzing these strange events in the story of Aomame on the basis of Freud’s insights from The Uncanny clarified, however, that Freud’s theory can only be used to a certain degree in my analysis of the possible meaning of the combination between the mundane and the magical in 1Q84. This is related to the fact that the uncanny effect in the story of Aomame is characterized by a feeling of doubt instead of fear. In order to still be able to enhance an understanding of the combination between the mundane and the

emergence of the uncanny, I have introduced Todorov’s notion of the “fantastic.” Reconciling Freud’s and Todorov’s theories allowed me to interpreted the uncanny that emerges in Aomame’s story in relation to a return of the repressed, as something that causes a feeling of doubt instead of fear. After all, Todorov considers uncanny events a necessary condition for the fantastic, but also states that fear does not necessarily need to be present in the fantastic text. In my second and third chapter, I will continue with my effort to treat Murakami’s novel as a fantastic text in order to clarify the uncanny, by which I aim to explain the social relevance of 1Q84. In my next chapter, which introduces Tengo’s storyline, this will include addressing the problematic part of Todorov’s theory, which is characterized by his implicit mixing of textual elements with reader response theory.

2. The themes of the other: Following the problematic part of Todorov’s

theory.

Introduction

After having suggested in my first chapter that it is possible to reconcile the theories of Freud and Todorov in my attempt to clarify the uncanny in 1Q84, I will now address the problematic nature of Todorov’s theory of the fantastic. This refers to his implicit mixing of textual elements with reader response theory. In doing so, I will focus on the presence of the “themes of the other” (Todorov 139) in the stories of Tengo and Aomame, which is one of the two kinds of themes that Todorov

distinguishes in the fantastic. I will indicate how the presence of these themes of the other affects the textual elements in 1Q84 that can be linked to the genre of the fantastic, in terms of the chance that they might have an effect on the readers of Murakami’s novel.

Before going deeper into the presence of this fantastic theme in 1Q84, I will first introduce the story of Tengo, and suggest that it should also be classified as a purely fantastic text that includes an emergence of the uncanny. By arguing that this emergence is similar to the emergence of the uncanny in Aomame’s story, I go against Freud’s ideas about the subjective nature of the uncanny. This indicates again that Freud’s theory can only be used to some extent in my analysis of the strange events that occur in the realistic setting of Murakami’s novel. In this way, it is

confirmed that reconciling Freud’s and Todorov’s theories is necessary in my attempt to ensure the best possible understanding of the uncanny in the stories of 1Q84’s main characters. Eventually, this will lead to my definition of the way in which Murakami’s novel addresses social commitment.

I will analyze the nature of the uncanny events that take place in Tengo’s story in relation to the uncanny in the story of Aomame, by focusing on the “distorted relation between the self and the unconscious” (Borghart and Madelein) that they both seem to suffer from as a result of certain events that occurred when they were

children. I will use some of Freud’s and Fenichel’s psychoanalytical insights to clarify the relation between this distorted relation between the self and the unconscious, and the defense activities of the ego that include a process of repression. On the basis of this, I will address the ambiguous nature of repression. In doing so, I refer to my observation that the return of the repressed in 1Q84 reveals Tengo’s and Aomame’s

disturbed balance between the id and the superego, but that it remains unexplained whether the “something” (Fenichel 18) that seems to cause this return of the repressed, is external to 1Q84’s main characters, or if it is situated in their inner psyche. I will use this indication of the feeling of doubt that characterizes the stories of Tengo and Aomame, to substantiate my argument that 1Q84 should be classified as a purely fantastic text. This is important because it justifies my effort to clarify the uncanny in Murakami’s novel by treating it as a purely fantastic text.

Tengo’s and Aomame’s distorted relation between the self and the

unconscious, implies a presence of the themes of the other in their stories. On the basis of Borghart’s and Madelein’s way of relating the themes of the other to ontogenesis, I will argue that the presence of this theme prevents the reader to keep his distance from the universe of Murakami’s novel. Thus, the textual elements, linked by Todorov to the fantastic, are likely to have the expected effect on the

readers of 1Q84. As already mentioned in my first chapter, this effect includes readers sharing the ambiguous perception of the strange events that indicate a return of the repressed, with the main characters of a particular literary text. In this way, it becomes possible to follow Todorov in claiming that certain text-immanent features are bound to have a particular effect on the readers of a story that contains supernatural events, even though a person’s reading experience is believed to be subjective.

The emergence of the uncanny in the story of Tengo

In my previous chapter, I discussed that the strange events in Aomame’s story seem to be related to the return of things from her past that she has repressed. I will now introduce Tengo’s storyline and argue that his story should also be classified as a fantastic text that includes an emergence of the uncanny on the basis of a return of repressed infantile complexes. This enables me to relate the stories Aomame and Tengo in my attempt to clarify the uncanny in 1Q84.

Just like Aomame, Tengo Kawana is single and turns thirty in the course of his story. Tengo, who also lives in a simple one-bedroom condo in one of Tokyo’s

suburbs, teaches math at a cram school but fills most of his spare time writing fiction. Since submitting his work for an annual new writers’ prize, Tengo is guided in his writing by an editor of a publishing company named Komatsu. Komatsu also provides occasional small writing jobs for Tengo, as a result of which Tengo is eventually

hired as a screener for the same new writers’ prize that initially brought Komatsu in his life.

It is first indicated that the strangeness that starts to occur in the story of Tengo seems to remind him of his childhood, when Fuka-Eri is introduced into his life. Fuka-Eri is a seventeen-year-old girl that has submitted a story called Air

Chrysalis for that year’s new writer prize, which both Tengo and Komatsu consider to

be a likely winner. Air Chrysalis is, however, incredibly badly written. This is why Komatsu asks Tengo meet with Fuka-Eri and to secretly start rewriting her story, before presenting it as one of the likely winners.

At first sight, Fuka-Eri’s appearance gives Tengo a strange kind of feeling: “Under the gaze of two glistening, pitch-black pupils, Tengo felt uncomfortable. She hardly blinked and seemed almost not to be breathing” (Murakami 43). Tengo also notices that her way of speaking has the following “distinguishing characteristics”: “Sentences shorn of embellishment, a chronic shortage of inflection,” and “a limited vocabulary” (Murakami 44). This oddness about Fuka-Eri’s way of speaking is enhanced by her habit of “asking questions without question marks” (Murakami 44). When Tengo reflects in more detail on the strange feeling that Fuka-Eri gives him, it is stated that she had managed to shine a special light on the “void” that had always been inside him (Murakami 48). Relating this to Tengo’s reaction when he looks at two photographs of Fuka-eri: “the more he looked, the more he thought about himself at that age” (Murakami 26), suggests that the introduction of the highly unusual Fuka-Eri in his life, seems to indicate a return of certain repressed feelings from his past.

Moreover, when Tengo is back home after agreeing with Fuka-Eri to rewrite

Air Chrysalis, he has a strong feeling that he is “being swept up in something out of

the ordinary,” a feeling that, according to him, could be either a “premonition, or just a funny feeling” (Murakami 52). This clarifies that the opening scenes of Tengo’s story resemble the scenes that include Aomame’s reaction to Janacek’s Sinfonietta. Both in terms of the scenes indicating a return of the repressed, and with regard to the fact that these scenes can be considered as a kind of presage of the things that will occur to them, but of which they are not yet aware.

Once Tengo starts rewriting Air Chrysalis, he notices that rewriting her story “had begun to change something inside of him” (Murakami 253). This includes a newly awoken desire in Tengo that he has not experienced before. Initially, this desire is reflected in his strong urge to write his own novel that he starts to compose

immediately after rewriting Fuka-Eri’s story, which, as expected, wins the new writers’ prize. Fuka-Eri, however, mysteriously disappears after winning the prize.

Tengo’s novel is about the same world that Fuka-Eri wrote about, “a world with two moons in the sky” (Murakami 306). When explaining the setting of his novel to his girlfriend Kyoko, a married woman ten years his senior who meets him every Friday for sex, Tengo states that the point of writing about this kind of distant world is: “being able to rewrite the past of the world that is here” (Murakami 308). Because it also has been clarified at this point that Tengo’s novel is about himself, it is again indicated that meeting Fuka-Eri, and rewriting her novel, which resulted in Tengo’s desire to write his own novel, is in some way related to Tengo’s own past.

The first “very unusual” event (Murakami 379) that happens after Tengo has met the highly unusual Fuka-Eri, and heard about her sudden disappearance after she won the new writers’ prize, is that his older girlfriend does not show up one Friday afternoon without having contacted him. Not long after realizing the strangeness of this situation, Tengo is phoned by Kyoko’s husband, whom he has never seen or spoken to before, and is informed by him that his wife is “irretrievably lost,” (Murakami 382) and can no longer visit Tengo’s home “in any form” (Murakami 382).

This strange message, and especially the addition of the phrase “in any form,” makes Tengo feel terribly uncomfortable. It also makes him suddenly realize that the situation in which Kyoko was engaged with him, resembles the situation of his mother who, as a married woman, had sexual encounters with another man, and died under indefinite circumstances while he was still a toddler. Tengo, who witnessed his mother’s adultery, has always been hunted by the image of her giving her breasts to another man. Again, this seems to indicate a possible link between a strange event in Tengo’s life, and certain happenings from his youth.

At this point in the story, Tengo not only started to sense a change within himself, but also in the world around him. This is first expressed when he wonders, after discussing the setting of his own novel with Kyoko, to “which world he now belonged to” (Murakami 309). Not long after this, Tengo, just like Aomame, discovers that there are two moons in the sky. Tengo’s description of the second moon indicates a relation between the strange events in his story and a return of repressed infantile complexes as well. This is clarified when Tengo, similar to