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Book 2, Chapter 3
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
The same day as his meeting with Malta and Noboru, Toru returns home to find a letter from Mamiya. The letter says that Mamiya has never shared his life story with anyone because he had become so isolated. All his family and friends are gone, and he does not want to make new acquaintances or fall in love. In the letter, Mamiya tells Noboru what he thinks happened to him at the bottom of the well. When Mamiya was in the well, there was a point when an overwhelming light shone down on him. Mamiya believes there was something metaphysical about the light; the moment it shone down on him, he felt that he understood himself better than he ever had before. It was as if the light gave him a glimpse at his true self.
Mamiya's letter to Toru suggests that their meeting meant something to him, which is significant because Mamiya has largely felt dead inside for the past 40 years. Although Mamiya and Toru are socially isolated, they shared an important moment that was deeply meaningful, at least to Mamiya. Mamiya's description of his time down in the well indicates that it was simultaneously the most real and surreal time of his life. On the one hand, his time their disrupted his ordinary existence; on the other hand, it left him free from the distractions of daily life and therefore able to see himself in a truer, fuller way than he’d previously been able.
Themes
After the war, Mamiya did his best to recapture his true self, which appeared to him at the bottom of the well. However, what enlightenment the light offered perpetually evaded Mamiya’s reach. Repeatedly, he failed to find the inner peace that light seemed to offer. Mamiya knew that he came close to achieving this perfect state of being, and the fact that he didn’t is part of what is now eating him up inside. His fate has been to suffer the exact opposite of what the light promised; he is alone, miserable, and will never achieve happiness. Additionally, he tells Toru, he has discovered that he cannot die. The long life that Honda promised him has come to fruition, but it has proven to be a curse. However, despite the cursed nature of his existence, Mamiya puts a lot of faith in Honda’s words because his predictions came true.
Ironically, Mamiya has spent his life trying to recapture something that he gained from the worst experience of his life. He found enlightenment through his near-death experience and cannot capture that feeling in his ordinary life. There is a fundamental emptiness to Mamiya’s life that he can never resolve, though his letter to Toru suggests that he is still trying, however futilely. Additionally, his letter reads like a warning to Toru, even if it was not intended to be. After all, Toru is now in a crisis of his own—likely the lowest point of his own life—and is desperately seeking guidance.
Themes
After reading Mamiya’s letter, Toru starts thinking about what has become of his life. For a moment, he worries that Noboru is right—that he is just a failure, a nobody who should move out of the way of someone like Noboru. He worries that he ruined not only his life but Kumiko’s as well. He finds this feeling overwhelming and difficult to swallow. Not wanting to be alone with his thoughts, Toru goes looking for May.
Here, Toru has an existential crisis. When Kumiko was around, he never had to justify his place in the world because his life with her contextualized his own life. Now, however, he feels lonely and without a purpose. He goes looking for May because he needs someone to reaffirm his existence.
Themes
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Toru walks over to May’s house and stands outside, hoping she will catch a glimpse of him. He waits for a while, but May never comes out. Toru goes home, where he finds Creta sitting in his living room. Creta says that she let herself in because the door was unlocked. She knows about the meeting with Malta and Noboru and wants to discuss it with him. She also reminds Toru that Noboru was the man who raped her. Then, she slightly qualifies her statement. She says that because she was a sex worker, what Noboru did was not exactly rape. However, he did “defile” her, which permanently changed something inside of her.
Toru often goes looking for one thing or person, only to find another when he does not expect to, and this is what happens with Creta in this passage. The defilement Creta mentions recalls the story that Kumiko told Toru about Noboru masturbating to their dead sister's clothes. Though what Noboru did was not technically, it was transgressive and a gross violation of another person’s humanity. Creta’s mention of Noboru “defil[ing] her” makes it seem like Noboru did something similar to her.
Themes
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Then, Creta tells Toru that they have been sexually active with each other. Her words confuse Toru, who does not know what she is talking about. Creta informs Toru that they have both been having the same dreams, and then describes the two sex dreams Toru has had in detail. Toru is bewildered, but Creta assures him this is quite normal for her. She claims that she is no longer a “prostitute of the flesh” and has instead become a “prostitute of the mind” since she started working for Malta.
As it turns out, Creta has some special abilities of her own. Apparently, she can enter into other people's dreams, which complicates how one should interpret Toru's dreams. Although a psychoanalytical framework is still valid—that is, Toru’s dreams could still reflect his repressed conflicts and desires—there is the added complication that outside influences are influencing his unconscious and, subsequently, the contents of his dreams. This plays into the novel’s examination of free will. How in control of his life can Toru truly be if even his dreams are subject to the whims of others?
Themes
All of this is overwhelming to Toru; he does not like that idea that Creta was his “prostitute,” even in a dream. Then, Creta asks Toru if he will hold her close to him. Toru does as she asks and embraces her while she cries. After some time, Creta gets up to leave. On her way out, she tells Toru that he does not need to be afraid of his dreams; instead, he should accept they are a part of him and go with the flow.
When Creta asks Toru to hold her close, it brings to mind the woman with whom Toru almost had an affair. Additionally, Creta’s advice recalls Mr. Honda's, as she tells him to go with the flow of his dreams rather than fight against his dreams. Notably, the novel repeatedly uses water as a metaphor to describe the mind’s functionality, adding extra valence to Mr. Honda's advice.
Themes
