Blog Post 3

The male protagonists in Murakami's stories seem to have an autistic or Asperger's quality when interacting with women. This could be due to the woman and man being quite different, or that the relationships tend to randomly occur. It doesn't help when the male characters have a lot of identity issues going on as well. The men in Murakami's stories often view their female partners as being difficult to understand, but also that the women have something that they themselves are missing or that the women are there for comfort. For instance, there is the sense of clarity with the woman and her ear in A Wild Sheep Chase or the innocence of the woman in Barn Burning.

It's really rare to see a couple who stays together happily – although it does happen in The Second Bakery Attack – in Murakami's stories. The sudden breakups, the misunderstandings and the spontaneous actions between the man and woman deconstruct the traditional values of marriage and relationships. In Murakami's stories, such as in A Wild Sheep Chase, you often find the male character going from one woman to another. There is a sense of playfulness as well in the relationships that perhaps you wouldn't find in the constraints of a normal relationship. You never get the sense that the man and woman in the relationship were destined to be together in Murakami's stories, which gives a dismal outlook on the idealistic, romantic relationships.