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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Reality and Subjective Experience
Free Will
Desire and Irrationality
The Personal Impact of War
Social Alienation
Summary
Analysis
Toru Okada prepares a pot of spaghetti for lunch and enjoys the melody of Rossini's The Thieving Magpie on the radio—the perfect music for cooking pasta. However, as he does so, a phone call interrupts him. Toru answers the call but does not recognize the woman's voice on the other end. The mysterious woman requests 10 minutes of Toru's time so they can understand each other's feelings. The request baffles Toru, who politely asks her to call back later. Toru's response annoys the woman, though she eventually agrees to do so. Toru returns to cooking pasta. When he finishes cooking, he sits at the table alone and eats his meal while thinking about the strange phone call.
Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie is an opera featuring a bird that flies into a rich man’s house and steals one of his silver spoons. The man blames the theft on one of his servants and sends her to prison. In this scene, a random bird changes the entire trajectory of a woman’s life. Similarly, in this novel—which also has a bird in its title—a bird will significantly impact Toru’s life. This opening scene also establishes phone calls as an important form of communication, which will remain central to the plot.
Themes
After lunch, Toru tries to read but finds that he can’t stop thinking about the phone call. Shortly after, Toru's wife Kumiko calls and informs him about a job she heard of, which involves writing and editing for a magazine. Toru reminds her that he is actively seeking employment in the law, not poetry. Kumiko questions if he is unhappy staying at home and taking care of the household, to which Toru admits that he does not mind it. Surprisingly, Kumiko suggests that there is no rush for him to find a job. Abruptly ending the call, Kumiko reminds Toru about their missing cat and asks him to search the neighborhood, suspecting it may be at the abandoned house with the bird statue nearby.
Although Toru’s position in the household would not be unheard of in 1980s Japan, it was certainly uncommon. Typically, if someone stayed home in a relationship during this period, it would be a woman. Nonetheless, Toru’s employment status does not seem to particularly bother him or Kumiko. Additionally, this passage sets up the inciting incident for the plot— Toru and Kumiko’s cat is missing, and Kumiko tasks Toru with finding it.
Themes
Toru steps out onto the veranda to contemplate the absence of their cat. The cat's dish is still full of food, which tells Toru the cat has yet to return. Toru listens to the mechanical chirping of a bird he and Kumiko affectionately call "the wind-up bird" because it "wind[s] the spring of [their] quiet little world." While standing on the veranda, Toru thinks about his current circumstances. Recently, Toru left his job at a law firm's legal aid department due to boredom, despite being good at his work. Kumiko supported his decision because she makes enough money to care for them.
The “wind-up bird” is the third reference to birds in the novel. Kumiko’s description of the wind-up bird lays the foundation for the novel’s philosophical examination of free will. When Kumiko says the bird winds the spring of the world, she implicitly compares the bird’s chirping to a human winding a wind-up toy; that is, she is suggesting that the bird’s chirp—not the voluntary actions of individual people—sets the whole world into motion, suggesting a lack of free will.
Themes
Toru goes back inside, where he receives another call from the mysterious woman. The woman convinces Toru to speak with her for 10 minutes. Toru tells the woman he cannot speak for any longer because he needs to search for the lost cat. The woman assures Toru that they know each other and have met hundreds of times. However, she claims that she cannot go into the nature of their relationship because it would take much longer than 10 minutes to explain. Still not convinced, Toru tests the woman by asking her his age, and the woman answers correctly: 30.
Before quitting his job, it’s unlikely that Toru would have entertained this unknown woman’s calls, as she speaks vaguely and refuses to make the purpose of the call clear. However, now that Toru has more time at his disposal, he is willing to entertain the woman. Additionally, the woman seems like more than a random prank caller, given that she actually does know some information about Toru.
Themes
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Unexpectedly, the mysterious woman reveals that she is unclothed, prompting Toru to express his disinterest in any form of phone sex. Despite his reluctance, the woman tries to engage him in phone sex anyway. Toru listens to the woman for some time but hangs up on her after six minutes. Subsequently, the phone rings an additional 15 times, but Toru chooses to ignore it.
Sexual desire is a constant theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami represents desire as a strong and often disruptive force that can destroy relationships if one is not careful. Here, however, Toru genuinely seems to have no interest in what the woman is proposing, despite her persistence.
Themes
In the afternoon, Toru ventures into the alley behind his house in search of the cat. Despite his efforts, he arrives empty-handed at the vacant house with the bird statue. There, Toru encounters a teenage girl named May Kasahara sunbathing in the yard of the neighboring house. Toru describes the missing cat to her and inquires if she has seen it. May believes she might have and invites Toru to join her on her lawn while they wait for the cat to pass by. Toru tells May that the cat's name is Noboru Wataya—apparently, Toru named the cat after his brother-in-law. Toru notices that May has a limp, which she says came from a motorcycle accident.
Throughout the novel, many characters and animals have strange names. Although Noboru Wataya is not an odd name for a Japanese man, it certainly is for a cat. Additionally, it is worth remembering that cats prey upon birds. Here, one character—Noboru, Kumiko’s brother—is associated with cats. Later, a different character will be associated with birds.
Themes
May takes Toru to her house and invites him to sit next to her on a lawn chair. May tells Toru that she lives at the house—which is quite large—all by herself. The only other person around is the housekeeper, who comes in the mornings and evenings. Toru asks May why she is not in school, but she does not answer. Instead, she asks why Toru is not at work. Toru answers honestly and does not question the girl about her own life any further.
Although May mentions her parents several times in the story, they never appear in the novel. Like Toru, May spends much of her time alone. Also like Toru, May is not fulfilling her normative social role because she does not go to school. It’s possible that May’s insecurity about her present situation prevents her from answering Toru when he questions her about her life.
Themes
Instead, May shares with Toru that a family named the Miyawakis used to reside in the now-deserted house where Toru was looking for his cat. Apparently, the Miyawakis suddenly left about a year ago, but May does not know why. She speculates that it may be because they were in debt. Now, the house serves as a breeding ground for cats.
In this story, characters will often appear for significant chunks of time and then mysteriously vanish, just like the Miyawakis. Murakami eventually elaborates on some of their fates, though he leaves room for ambiguity about the fates of others.
Themes
May leaves for a few minutes and then returns with a Coke for herself. Then, she starts a bizarre conversation with Toru about whether he could be with a woman with extra body parts. At first, she asks him if he would be okay with dating a woman with six fingers. Apparently, her cousin has six fingers, which sparked the question. Toru says he would not mind. Toru's answer surprises May, so she ups the ante and asks him if he would date a woman with four breasts. Toru claims he cannot imagine such a thing, so he cannot honestly answer the question.
Here, Toru and May’s conversation takes a strange twist that carries sexual undertones. Although May’s questions are odd, she is genuinely interested in Toru’s answers. Curiosity is one of May’s primary character traits, as is her willingness to speak openly to adults. Meanwhile, although Toru does his best to answer May’s questions, he is uncomfortable discussing such matters.
Themes
May tells Toru that, despite being 16 years old, she is taking time off from school to recover from the motorcycle accident. In the sweltering heat, Toru starts to doze off, and May encourages him to sleep while she continues talking. May moves close to Toru and says quietly, "When people die, it’s so neat." Then, she grabs Toru's wrist and says she wishes she could cut it open. She describes, in detail, what she imagines the inside of his wrist looks like. The whole time, Toru says nothing.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a work of surrealist fiction and, often, it is difficult to distinguish between what is “real” and what is imagined. Although Murakami explicitly labels some scenes as dreams, others are more ambiguous. Often, dream worlds merge with the real world, which may be what is happening here. Perhaps May does say these disturbing things to Toru—she is certainly capable of it—but the fact that Toru starts to doze off makes it ambiguous.
Themes
May tells Toru that since taking a break from school, she has had a lot of time to think, which is why she has such strange thoughts. Then, she coaxes him to sleep and promises to keep an eye out for his cat. In his drowsy state, Toru recollects the woman from the earlier phone call and dreams about his cat.
May and Toru are similar in that they’ve both recently found themselves in a new position in life, which has left them socially isolated. Their new positions leave them with more time to think deeply about themselves and the world around them.
Themes
Upon waking up, Toru finds that May and his cat are nowhere in sight. He walks back home and begins preparing dinner, all the while enduring the persistent ringing of the phone. Kumiko arrives home in the evening, later than usual, and breaks into tears over the missing cat, accusing Toru of not genuinely searching for it. Exhausted, Toru and Kumiko ignore the incessant ringing of the phone, choosing not to answer it.
When Toru wakes up, May is nowhere in sight, again giving the scene a surreal feeling. Of course, Toru’s reality is no less strange than his dreams, as the phone's incessant ringing gives an uncanny flavor to Toru and Kumiko's dinner conversation. Phones are tools for communication, and Toru's refusal to answer the phone, therefore, is a failure of communication. The same is true of his conversation with Kumiko. Two people are trying to communicate with Toru, but he struggles to reciprocate.
Themes
