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Book 3, Chapter 37
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
File 17 is a letter to Toru from Kumiko. In the letter, Kumiko says she plans to kill Noboru by shutting off his life support. After that, she plans to turn herself in to the authorities. Kumiko says that she has no intention of defending her actions and expresses no fear of imprisonment, as she has endured far worse in her life. She claims that Noboru has violated and imprisoned her mind since she was a young child.
Additionally, Kumiko reveals that her infidelity was not limited to a single affair but involved multiple men when she left Toru. At first, she blames Noboru for her actions. However, she second-guesses herself and suggests that she may be the one to blame after all. Since leaving Toru, Kumiko says, she often dreamed that he was on the verge of finding her in the darkness, but he consistently missed her. In her fantasies, she hoped that he would break the spell and rescue her.
Kumiko’s words suggest that she was the mysterious woman in the hotel after all. The mysterious woman also sits “in darkness” and Toru almost saves her, though apparently his actions did not “break the spell.” Similarly, the man Toru killed in his dream was Noboru, who was keeping Kumiko hostage.
Themes
