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Book 1, Chapter 1
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 sits at home alone and wonders about whether one can truly know another person. He acknowledges that people can know a lot about one another, but he is skeptical about whether it is possible to know who someone else is at their core. With nothing better to do, Toru reads a book for a while and then starts prepping dinner because he knows Kumiko will be home soon. When dinner is ready, Toru sets the table and then sits there alone, waiting for Kumiko. After some time, Toru starts to get worried because Kumiko is late.
Two major 20th-century philosophical movements influenced The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: existentialism and phenomenology. Existentialism focuses on a person’s ability to advance their place in the world through acts of free will. Meanwhile, phenomenology examines how an individual’s consciousness experiences the world around them. These areas of philosophy have a good deal of overlap because both focus on human beings as unique individuals experiencing reality through a subjective lens. The question Toru contemplates in this scene—whether one person can ever really know another—is a fundamental question in phenomenology.
Themes
Kumiko finally comes home at 9:00 p.m. She apologizes to Toru for her tardiness and explains that she meant to call him but could not find the time. Toru accepts her apology and the two of them sit down together for dinner. Almost immediately, Kumiko and Toru begin fighting over petty issues. Kumiko does not like the meal Toru cooked—apparently because she cannot stand the thought of beef and green peppers together—and she disapproves of the toilet paper and tissues he bought while she was away.
This is the second time Kumiko and Toru have interacted in the novel—and the second time they have fought. Their constant disagreements—especially over trivial matters—suggest they are having marital problems. Also, it is important to note that the novel is told from Toru’s first-person perspective, therefore everything the reader knows about Kumiko is filtered through Toru’s subjective lens.
Themes
Kumiko’s criticisms confuse Toru. He never realized that Kumiko was so particular about certain types of food or the color of her tissues and toilet paper. Toru thinks that Kumiko is likely in a worse mood than normal because her period is coming soon. Apparently, Kumiko’s menstrual cycle perfectly matches up with the cycle of the moon, so Toru always knows when to expect her period. After their argument, Kumiko confirms Toru’s theory and apologizes for her bad attitude. Later that night, as Kumiko and Toru lie next to each other in bed, Toru continues to wonder about whether it is possible to know another person’s essence. At the moment, he feels like he does not know Kumiko at all.
In this passage, Murakami contrasts what Toru knows about Kumiko with what he doesn’t know about Kumiko. Although Toru misses some trivial details about Kumiko, he clearly knows some intimate information about her as well, such as when to expect her period. However, Toru needs more. He senses that there is something wrong with his relationship with Kumiko and that there is an uncomfortable distance between them.
Themes
