Some say that anyone who cares about the portrayal of women should be wary of Haruki Murakami's work, because women in his world are portrayed almost uniformly negatively.
Other critics argue that in actuality, the men in Murakami's world are the losers in the portrayal game. They say that the men are characterized negatively throughout.
What do you say? In this blog, you must refer to at least two stories, and you must respond to the comments of at least one fellow student.
Here are two comments from a blog on Murakami to start you off:
I don't know if murakami's work can exactly be described as "misogynist", maybe it's just that he's not very good at writing women, but his female characters tend to be drawn from a male ideal of a certain type of woman/girl rather than existing in their own right.
Well,I agree with the opinion that Murakami's novels are weak on drawing female characters, because the first person is usually "僕boku"(means male"I"), but I think it's the men who end up looking unsympathetic.
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10 comments:
This is Ted Nowak:
I agree with the prompt somewhat. I wouldn't go so far as to state that that Murakami is bad at writing women but I definitely think that men are portrayed negatively in Murakami's stories. What kind of negative? Men are stupid, ignorant, not ambitious, and they don't care about what needs to be cared about.
First off, most of the stories have a male protagonist. Each male protagonist of each story has some sort of flaw that sticks out like a sore thumb. Let's take "the Second Bakery Attack" as our first example.
The protagonist is portrayed as unambitious and ignorant. After telling his wife the story of the bakery attack, his wife seems intent on embarking on a second bakery attack. The protagonist, in contrast, is reluctant to go on this "adventure." He says, "Let's forget it," (Pg. 44). We can see that his wife is the person that is all about business. While she covers the license plates, the protagonist just stares at her (Pg. 45). Even at the end of the story, the protagonist says "Still, was it really necessary for us to do this?" We so the total lack of ambition in the protagonist.
In the story "The Elephant Vanishes," the protagonist is shown as secluded and boring. More then half the story goes on without the protagonist talking with anyone. He has a weird infatuation with elephants. The protagonist keeps his information about the elephant to himself. He shows practically no emotion. When he meets a woman at the end of the story he blows his chance at amounting it to anything. "That was the last time I saw here," (Pg. 327). He passes up his opportunity to get closer to a woman he was doing well with.
From these stories and others we are left to conclude that men aren't ambitious. They are ignorant. They are stupid.
I do not fully agree with the prompt. I do not think that the women of Murakami's stories are protrayed more negatively than the men, nor do I think that the men are protrayed more negatively than women. I simply believe that Murakami was protraying these characters realistically. Of the short stories we've read, there are times when we sympathize with the women, and other times when we sympathize with the men. Murakami did this to reveal that it's not always the fault of one specific gender that leads to bad relationships. For example, when you look at the two stories, "Sleep" and "TV people", the protagonists of both stories were characterized very similarly. Both of opposite gender and we sympathized with both, because it showed a similar situation but from a man and a woman. They were both in relationships were they put themselves in a situation that they couldn't get out of, leading them to be entrapped. Basically, Murakami protrayed these characters in a realistic way, meaning that sometimes it's the man who seems to be ignorant, and sometimes it's the woman. More Specifically, if you look at the protagonist in "Sleep", you know that she didn't realize how much she had changed until the end, when it was too late. This is also similar in "TV people" when the protagonist doesn't realize his marriage had been over until it was too late.
I agree with the prompt that the female characters within the stories, are drawn from the male characters; however this can be also argued for some of the male characters also. Therefore, Murakami makes us both equally sympathize with both male and female characters, because of the confinement created by their spouse.
For example, in the story of "Sleep," the female protagonist is depicted as robotic because of her obligations to her husband and son [i.e. male protagonists]. Murakami's characterization of her as robotic shows how he draws the female characters based on the development of the male characters. This is found especially when the female protagonist in 'Sleep' talks about chocolate, "My husband doesn't like me to eat sweets" [91]. 'Doesn't like' emphasizes on the confinement of her life by her husband, suggesting that spouses are to blame for confinement. This effect, however, is also found in the story of 'T.V. People' with opposite genders. When male protagonist talks about his wife getting nit-picky about things moving within the house, he says that his wife "doesn't like" when he touches her magazines and that he'll "never heard the end" (199) of it if he does. The words "doesn't like" and "never" and "end" again emphasizes on that feeling of entrapment created by the spouse.
In both 'Sleep' and 'T.V. People,' the protagonists of both stories are drawn from their spouses, in which the protagonist is female in one story and male in the other. Therefore because of this, I think males and females in Murakami's world are portrayed equally un/sympathetic.
I agree with Nina’s statement that neither woman nor man has been portrayed as a “hard pill to swallow” however, men and woman have a common theme not of laziness, but the lack of something worth fighting for in the novel. Many of these characters are very used to keeping everything the same, and do nothing to change their lives, nor do they strive for something different. So, when things happen that they are not accustomed to, the protagonists (mainly men) seem to be taken aback by the sudden shock to their daily lives. While most of the perspectives in the Elephant Vanishes are in fact narrations of these people’s lives, not one of them shows the enthusiasm for any thing they do. While woman, argumentably have been portrayed as somewhat cold and very persistent, it’s a reflection of not gender, but we must also take into consideration that Haruki being a man, would be able to write about man easier than he would a woman; even so his characterization of all characters are all because he gave them choices and juxtaposed several characters to give you the image of the difference personalities that these character have in order to understand his world view. So neither gender is discriminated. They are both just there, not to be nicer than the other, but to give us the common misconceptions that men are either a. lazy, b. hard working, or c. happy with a beer in their hands(all the time). As well as with woman who have long been thought to be a. loving , b.maternal , and c. compassionate (all the time). Murakiami shows us that sometimes that isn’t the case and that in fact roles are surprisingly shifted to fit any circumstance. In Little Green Monster the woman is shown as cold and heartless…but it is also can be stated that she is so passionately devoted to her husband that any threat to their marriage is eliminated; and she makes that decision. Making her not weak or cruel but willing to do anything for her marriage, even if it is not for love. While in The Second Bakery Attack, the man is sort of a push over who has another story besides the one his wife knows; that she immediately wants to know. Yet he is strong enough to support his wife in their crazy endeavor to eliminate the “hunger” that the curse has laid upon them. So I don’t think either gender is portrayed unsympathetically more than the other. Finally I also think that the one quote that is in TSBA “take me where I belong” encompasses every character in real life and in The Elephant Vanishes. All these character need to be where they belong in order to do what they are meant to do whether its their standards or societies ,they all do what is necessary for survival.
Erika Marquez
This is Tiffany Tsang.
I do agree that men are portrayed negatively more then women. Agreeing to what Ted and Joanna said is true so far.
I agree with ted with the "Second Bakery Attack" that the protagonist where the woman is controlling pretty much what he needs to do. "Attack another bakery. Right Away." pg 43. This sounds more of a demanding thing to do then suggesting something. Which shows that men has no control whatsoever.
As for Joanna, i agree that the protagonist was ignorant in "TV people." What it seems to me that the protagonist doesn't seem to be able to function properly without the wife. He feels hopeless and lazy and all he does was lay on the couch. "All afternoon I take it easy and loll around on the sofa." The protagonist himself even admits to that fact that he was being lazy and does not do anything around the house.
All together, men seems hopeless without the help of women. They are also seen as someone that needs someone to show them the way in life.
Hello!
This is Robert Slay!
I have to agree with Jojo, Nina, and Phoenix that men and women are not treated more negatively than the other one.
For example, in "Second Bakery Attack", the women is portrayed as the more aggressive one and the husband is more passive, more critically it seems like their relationship is portrayed more as a parent/guardian type of relationship. The main character or husband says to us (the reader), what he says to his wife. "Would madame care for some French dressing sauteed deodorizer?" He goes on to say"I expected her to ignore my attempt at humor, and she did". This shows how she embodied a more authoritative role in this story, the husband is more passive and child-like not treated as someone of a necessary equal or on the level she is at. This is shown better a few lines down when the main character says "Whenever my wife expressed an opinion (or thesis) back then, it reverberated in my ears with the authority of a revelation", its so ironic that he would say, "A Thesis", this is found commonly among parents dictating things to their children, and the reverberating suggests that the author wants us to take this a her yelling at him. Which shows her harsh authority over him, and it makes him shrink in our eyes, which indicates their unequal. We are lead to believe that men should be more assertive in their relationships and not take anything like the main character did.
In Sleep, it is the opposite, the main character or wife seemed to put the man on a pedestal, it seemed as though the woman lived her life through her family's presence but more significantly her life stopped when her husband wasn't there. This is supported by the number of times she suggested he should be there. From the beginning, she discussed how her husband is gone away from her all the time, which suggest the dependency that the wife has on her husband. She seems to make herself subservient to him, for example as soon as he walks through the door she is eager to feed him, as though this is her life duty. The author wants to understand that even though the husbands are working, they still should spend more time with their better half. This leads to men looking more negative because it looks like they are abandoning their wives but in actually the wives' dependency has caused turbulence in the family life.
Murakami' world view about men and women are shown throughout each story, not that they are negative to a certain extent but that they share different flaws that cause problems throughout their lives.
Spencer Harstead:
I think that Murakami is weak at female characters, but you can't really blame him, seeing as he is a guy.I definitely think he portrays women better than men however. The men in most of the stories simply accomplish nothing. As Ted said they don't care about what needs to be cared about. I disagree with his claim that they are unambitious. In each story with a male protagonist, they seem to know what they want. For the most part, they just don't know how to get it or they don't care enough to figure it out.
Overall, I think Murakami portrays men more uncertain than women. In "A Window" and "100% Perfect Girl" the men know what they want, which is a girl. However, neither of them apply themselves to getting that because of obvious self doubt.
"How can I approach her? What should I say?" This not only shows his ignorance in romance, but also his lack of confidence as he is questioning himself.
In "Little Green Monster", the protagonist is female. She doesn't have any ambition revealed in the story. She does, however, not want a monster to love her. She, unlike the men, takes action and gets what she wants. Men seem to need women more than women need men in these stories. Therefore, men are potrayed as the losers in The Elephant Vanishes.
This is Kyle Trentz
I believe that Murakami does portray the men in his stories to be negative and unsympathetic. For example, in the story TV People we can see that the main character is portrayed as someone who just goes along with his daily routine, not really taking advantage of his life. He has a mediocre job, a bad marriage, and is seeing little people around him, but for someone does not do or say anything about it. Likewise, in the end of the story of The Second Bakery Attack, the main character decides to just go along with the flow and let life guide him. He does not decide to take his own life into his own hands. This is how I believe Murakami portrays the men in his stories as unsympathetic because we would not agree with living in such a way.
It was also very interesting what Robert said about men and women not being treated any less negatively than one another.
In Murakami's stories i think the author makes both men and woman equally negative. He exaggerates they was men are critized of not noticing things about their significant others im both "Sleep" and "TV People." As he puts emphasis on the lazy nature of men, he also heightens the controlling nature of women in "The Secong Backery Attack," and "TV People."
I agree with Joanna in the fact that the author portrays the characters in a realistic way. We find his characters relatable to people we know in our everyday lives and their action throughout the stories are not shocking to us.
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