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Book 3, Chapter 22
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 asks Cinnamon to bring him newspapers, but he quickly regrets the request. The outside world is completely overwhelming, and it stresses him out. Instead, Toru reflects on how he has changed over the past year and wonders about the reasons behind it. While Toru continues to evolve, Noboru has become a prominent and respected politician. Noboru’s success surprises Toru because he never thought Noboru’s popularity would last once people got to know him.
One important question the novel asks is whether Toru becomes a fundamentally different person. In some ways, he is the same person he was at the beginning of the novel. For instance, his distaste for the outside world has not gone away. However, in other ways, he has changed. He is more powerful and has a sense of his place in the world.
Themes
Toru also requests books from Cinnamon, specifically ones about Manchukuo. He wants to know more about the history that Mamiya and Nutmeg started to reveal to him. He learns that, in the 1920s, Japan initiated research and development for a potential war with the Soviets. To equip their soldiers for the harsh Soviet climate, they required a substantial amount of wool. However, Japan did not possess enough sheep to meet this demand. As a solution, they considered securing a reliable source of wool from the Manchuria-Mongolia region. Yoshitaka Wataya, Noboru’s uncle, was tasked with investigating the feasibility of this plan.
All the history Toru reads is true with the exception of the Wataya family’s involvement. The Watayas are fictional and thus had no bearing on the course of history. However, for the sake of this novel, Toru’s discovery regarding Yoshitaka Wataya is significant. After all, Toru already has a keen sense that a higher power is connecting everything in his world in ways he has only begun to unravel. Although this is one interpretation, a counterpoint is that the reason everything feels as though it is connected is that the war affected everyone in Japan in one way or another.
Themes
During his investigation, Yoshitaka met with Lieutenant General Kanji Ishiwara, a renowned figure who played a significant role in instigating the war with Manchuria. Ishiwara proposed that establishing an economy in Manchukuo under Japanese control would strengthen Japan's position against the Soviets.
Ishiwara was a real figure in the Japanese army. He was responsible for the Mukden Incident, a false flag operation staged as a pretext for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Themes
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Instead of turning Manchukuo into a colony, Ishiwara suggested creating an entirely new Asian nation out of Manchukuo. While Yoshitaka found this proposal to be illogical, he admired Ishiwara’s nationalist ideals and military prowess. After the war, Yoshitaka was initially barred from holding public office but eventually regained his power through the Conservative Party.
Yoshitaka’s admiration for Ishiwara is in line with the nationalist views held by the likes of Noboru. However, looked at over a longer historical lens, Ishiwara is a notorious figure in Japan's history. Certainly by the time Murakami published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, any mention of admiring Ishiwara would be scrutinized or condemned.
Themes
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Toru’s realization is essential for his character and for the novel’s ultimate message. Whether they know it or not, every character in the story is caught up in history’s influence on the present. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, that cause-and-effect pull was particularly strong in Japan because of its role in World War II and the conflicts leading up to it.
Themes
