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Book 2, Chapter 7
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
Still at the bottom of the well, Toru falls asleep and has another strange dream. He is in the lobby of a hotel, surrounded by TV screens, all of which contain Noboru’s face. Noboru is giving a speech to a large audience about the importance of personal motivation. Anyone who cannot motivate themselves, according to Noboru, is a useless person. Toru listens to the speech and feels like it is a personal attack. He cannot believe that Noboru would give a televised speech just to attack him.
Toru’s experiences in the well read like a mixture of a dream and an alternate reality. During these experiences, Toru always goes to the same place—a hotel—where he sees the same figures. As the TV screens suggest, this dream world or alternate reality closely mirrors Toru’s feelings about Noboru. In the dream, Noboru publicly attacks a part of Toru’s personality that he feels insecure about—his lack of motivation.
Themes
Toru starts exploring the hotel. He runs into the man with no face. The man tells Toru that he should not go farther into the hotel because it is not time for that yet, though he does not specify what “that” means. Toru ignores the man and continues walking. The man warns him that if he keeps going, he cannot reverse his decision. Still, Toru continues searching for Room 208, which he had seen in his previous dreams.
The vague advice that the man with no face provides is reminiscent of Mr. Honda and Malta Kano’s earlier advice to Toru. Although the man with no face never gets a proper name, he acts as a spiritual guide for Toru, just like Malta Kano and Mr. Honda do.
Themes
While looking for the room, Toru sees a waiter with a bottle of Cutty Sark, the same whisky that was on the box Mr. Honda gifted him. The waiter makes his way to Room 208, and Toru follows him. When the waiter opens the door, Toru goes inside. When Toru enters the room, he hears a woman’s voice calling out to him from the bed. He cannot see the mysterious woman, but he knows it is the same person who has been calling him for phone sex.
The bottle of Cutty Sark connects the dream space or alternate reality with Mr. Honda. The waiter acts as a guide for Toru, suggesting that he, too, could be a dream avatar for Mr. Honda, especially since he possesses the whisky. Meanwhile, the mysterious woman grows increasingly important, as she is the centerpiece of the dream.
Themes
Toru tells the mysterious woman he is looking for Kumiko. He is willing to do anything it takes to find her. The woman does not say anything that would help Toru find Kumiko, so he asks her for her name. The woman does not respond and instead orders Toru to pour her a drink. Toru listens careful to the sound of her voice; he is certain he knows the woman, but he cannot figure out why. The woman tells Toru that she will help him escape if he manages to figure out her name. Toru continues to wrack his brain but cannot come up with how he knows the mysterious woman.
Here, Toru wants the mysterious woman to solve his problems for him. However, she refuses to do so. Instead, she asks him to look within himself to find the answers to his questions. Toru tries but fails; he still cannot access whatever part of himself knows the mysterious woman.
Themes
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Suddenly frantic, the mysterious woman warns Toru that he is in danger. There is a man in his life who is more dangerous than Toru realizes. Moreover, if the man finds Toru in Room 208, there will be hell to pay. As she says these words, there is a knock on the door. The woman tells Toru that must get away and she motions for him to follow her. Together, they move through a wall. On the other side of the wall, Toru finds himself alone and in the bottom of a well.
The man the mysterious woman references sounds like Noboru, though Toru does not immediately make this connection. Additionally, the woman’s reaction to the knock at the door suggests that whoever is on the other side in dangerous. Also, the way Toru exits the dream provides more evidence that the dream is a sort of alternate reality and that the well functions as a portal to that reality.
Themes
