AP Lit Senior Project Research Note Cards

"It takes responsibility to be free and Murakami values highly both notions, freedom and responsibility. Given that Berdyaev and Sartre developed these concepts thoroughly, we find Murakami’s work eligible to be explored through their ideas."

Being truly free requires accepting responsibility, and Haruki Murakami places strong importance on both of these ideas. Since thinkers like Nikolai Berdyaev and Jean-Paul Sartre explored freedom and responsibility in depth, Murakami’s writing can be understood and analyzed through their philosophical perspectives.

“Characters are striving to find their happiness and true inner self by distancing, self-isolating, having mediators and never by reaching out to religion or any supreme being.”

Murakami’s characters try to discover happiness and their true identities by withdrawing from others, isolating themselves, and relying on intermediaries, rather than turning to religion or any higher power.

“Murakami's protagonists are remote, lonely, detached, estranged from society, and often lack a close or significant relationship with either family members or friends throughout their life. It seems that the protagonists were simply thrown into the world and were destined to cope with the fact of their being.”

Haruki Murakami often portrays protagonists who are distant, lonely, and disconnected from society, with few meaningful relationships with family or friends. They seem as if they’ve been placed into the world without guidance and are left to deal with the reality of their own existence on their own.

“The existential guilt he feels stems from acknowledging his accountability and failure to fulfill authentic possibilities (Yalom, 1980). The classmate's existential guilt stems from committing transgressions against himself and living a false life.”

His sense of existential guilt comes from recognizing his own responsibility and his failure to live up to his true potential. While the classmate’s guilt arises from betraying himself and living inauthentically.

“Although Kojima believes that Kafka leaves the other world because staying would fulfill his father’s omen, this is not true, and also unimportant. The point is not whether he fulfills or does not fulfill the omen; the key is that if he were to stay in this other world, he would be erasing his identity. It would be an easier course, but one that goes against all that Murakami wishes to assert: autonomy, individualism.”

Although Kojima believes that Kafka leaves the other world to avoid fulfilling his father’s prophecy, that reasoning isn’t really accurate, it’s not the main point anyway. What matters is that if Kafka chose to stay, he would lose his sense of identity. While staying might be the easier option, it goes against the core values Haruki Murakami emphasizes, especially independence and individuality.

“Through these examples, Murakami is advocating a life that is different from what is accepted and expected by Japanese society. Murakami takes the stance that Macquarrie takes: ‘…I do act in ‘bad faith’ when I deliberately avoid facing an honest decision and follow the conventional pattern of behavior in order to be spared the anxiety that comes when one is…thrown into seventy thousand fathoms.’”

Through these examples, Haruki Murakami suggests a way of living that challenges what Japanese society typically expects or accepts. He aligns with the view expressed by Macquarrie, who argues that people act in “bad faith” when they avoid making honest choices and instead follow social conventions just to escape the anxiety of being “thrown into seventy thousand fathoms.”