Individual contentment is confined in the gyre of civilization. It is a universal phenomenon that we always punish ourselves in expressing our psychological and physical necessity openly in fear of personal bonding, other's reaction, and social expectation. East Asian writer Haruki Murakami reveals this unbounded self-dissatisfaction under the mask of civility and reality through the way of life of modern Japanese young generation in his bestselling novel, Norwegian Wood. This self-discontentment makes the weak-kneed commit suicide and the compromising live passively. In this novel, despite having a right emotional attachment, Naoko and Toru fail to give each other psychophysical support that results in Naoko's silent death and mentally sporadic Toru's discontented conducts with bar-girls as well as sensible ones like Reiko and Midori. Moreover, Midori, Reiko, Hatsumi and Nagasawa are seen headmost in their way of life, who are provocative in their tone and action but offensive in their soul. This paper aims to show how civilized morality controls people's unequivocal feelings in a discontented manner in Murakami's Norwegian Wood.
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IOSR Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
Volume 25, Issue 11, Series 9 (November. 2020) 59-64
e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
www.iosrjournals.org
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2511095964 www.iosrjournals.org 59 |Page
Civilized Morality and Discontents in HarukiMurakami's
Norwegian Wood
Tanzin Sultana1 , Durdana Nower2 , Md. Abdul Malek3, Sadiya Sultana Ashfi4
1,2,3,4 (Department of English, BGC Trust University Bangladesh)
ABSTRACT:
Individual contentment is confined in the gyre of civilization. It is a universal phenomenon that we always
punish ourselves in expressing our psychological and physical necessity openly in fear of personal bonding,
other‟s reaction, and social expectation. East Asian writer Haruki Murakami reveals this unbounded self-
dissatisfaction under the mask of civility and reality through the way of life of modern Japanese young
generation in his bestselling novel, Norwegian Wood . This self-discontentment makes the weak-kneed commit
suicide and the compromising live passively. In this novel, despite having a right emotional attachment, Naoko
and Toru fail to give each other psychophysical support that results in Naoko‟s silent death and mentally
sporadic Toru‟s discontented conducts with bar - girls as well as sensible ones like Reiko and Midori. Moreover,
Midori, Reiko, Hatsumi and Nagasawa are seen headmost in their way of life, who are provocative in their tone
and action but offensive in their soul. This paper aims to show how civilized morality controls people‟s
unequivocal feelings in a discontented manner in Murakami‟s Norwegian Wood.
KEY WORDS:Civilization; Sexuality; Nothingness; Discontent; Toru.
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Date of Submission: 20-11-2020 Date of Acceptance: 06-12- 2020
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I. INTRODUCTION
Japanese contemporary author, Haruki Murakami‟s nostalgic and sensuous novel, Norwegian Wood is
an implicit expression of the psychological complexity of modern civilization. It is a story of yearning for love,
loss, pain, and painful memory. We, human beings, are not only social but also biological. To live soundly, we
long to fulfill our physical or emotional desires from our ordinary social beings. However, the more we become
cultured, socialized and civilized, the less we can hear ourselves. Standing on every marginal line of
civilization, people want to know the direction of life from the social constitution and find no direct answer. In
pursuit of happiness and peace, they run after person to person and place to place and being tired; they start
disvaluing their boundless feelings. According to Freud, " a complete list of methods that human beings employ
in trying to gain happiness and keep suffering at bay, and I am aware that the materials can be arranged
differently" (1930; 19).
Norwegian Wood (1987) is thirty-seven-year-old Toru Watanabe‟s throwback of 1960‟s days in Tokyo.
After arrivin g in West German and hearing the song „Norwegian Wood‟, he becomes upset with the throbbing
reminiscence of his dead beloved, Naoko and throat-choking experience of that time. Toru has a good friendship
with his classmate Kizuki and his girlfriend Naoko in Kobe. After Kizuki‟s death, Toru seems to be the only
man for traumatized Naoko to trust, and to find relief and support. Naoko says, "When I am close to you like
this, I‟m not the least bit scared. Nothing dark or evil could ever tempt me" (Murakami, 1987; 6) but also feels
that gradually Toru will be sick of her neurotic instability.
Despite her psychological turmoil, out of genuine love and care, Toru tries to read Naoko‟s eyes and
fill her demands up in Kobe and then in Tokyo. During their first sexual intercourse, Toru realizes that she does
not feel him as much as he does for her. To Naoko, Toru is her dead lover‟s shadow to whom she wants physical
and psychological desire. After that one-night sexual union,she runs away from Toru and the society to a
sanatorium as she feels that this civilized society and civilized being Toru cannot take her mental deformity for
a long time. This alienated feeling is not untrue as Toru himself confesses that he is not smart enough to
understand her. So despite loving her, Toru engages in sleeping with random and bar-girls at nights to please
his „sex drive‟ but always gets up in the morning with bleak displeasure because of his constant
feelingsofNaoko‟s transcendent fragrance. He also befriends his drama classmate, Midori Kobayashi who is,
unlike Naoko, self-confident, outspoken and high-spirited. Their spiritual relationship is in such a level that they
also strongly feel sex for each other but never do sexual intercourse except hand-jobs as their restrained morality
does not allow this passion till Naoko is existing. He also meets Naoko‟s sanatorium mate , Reiko Ishida who
could not save her marriage as her civilized family fails to understand her inner shouting. Despite being
Civilized Morality and Discontents in Murakami's Norwegian Wood
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2511095964 www.iosrjournals.org 60 |Page
desolated, we see her giving the pragmatic solution of mental dilemma confidently when Toru Watanabe faces
in choosing between dying Naoko and lively Midori.
After Naoko‟s unwanted departure, both Reiko and Midori individually give an ineffective try to make
Toru progress in their way. For a long time being sexually discontented, Reiko wants to find sexual contentment
from Toru, but it also results in another discontentment. At the end of the novel, both Midori and Toru choose to
stay together with each other; that is nothing but another fruitless civilized decision. Freud remarks within his
asking, "what good a long life to us if it is hard, joyless and so full of suffering that we can only welcome death
as a deliverer? " (1930; 26 -27). This paper aims at focusing on refined and modern morality as the root cause of
self-dissatisfaction because this morality teaches us to enslave our self-freedom directly and indirectly in our
self-creating civilized ideology.
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researchers collect data from printed books as primary sources and reading online articles as
secondary sources. For achieving the target of this research paper, they follow the „qualitative research method‟
by analyzing the main text narratively.
III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
While analyzing the novel, this research paper responds to the questions below:
i. What is the discontentment of the mind and soul?
ii. How does civilization make our mental health discontented?
iii. How does discontentment affect our interpersonal relationship?
iv. Is psychological discontentment a modern nervous sickness?
IV. EXPECTATIONS IN CIVIL CULTURE
Expectation acts as a consistent part of our mental health as well as cultured society. "The expectation
is a biological adaptation with specialized psychological structures and a long evolutionary pedigree. At the
same time, culture provides the preeminent environment in which many expectations are acquired and applied"
(Huron, 2006; 3). To liv e in a civil culture, human beings have to carry on code and conduct of civility that
"represented the deepeni ng of self-control, strict control over bodily desires and the segmentation of personal
space to protect a zone of privacy" (Buonfino&Mulgan, 2009; 019). In Norwegian Wood, Japanese societal
ideology, norms and lifestyle go against the biological expectation of Naoko, Toru, Midori, Reiko, Nagasawa
and Hatsumi. For them,civilized culture becomes a new deep well which might be the end of them if they fall
into it. It makes them think much seriously about civility overlooking the expectation of their mental health. As
well, it is beautiful to fall in love with more than one person as every person has something unique to be
relished. Since love is the food of soul and mind, one should not toss it on the back of a labyrinth and should
give himself to love sincerely. Having much concern for civil relationship, Toru Watanabe could not make any
relationship either with Naoko or with Reiko and Midori full of life. Naoko ‟s touch sometimes reminds him that
she is Kizuki‟s girl and he feels, "my arm was not the one she needed, but the arm of someone else. My warmth
was not what she needed, but the warmth of someone else" (Murakami, 1987; 35). Because of Naoko‟s mental
deformity, he goes to intimate with Midori and Reiko to meet his psychophysical desire, but they also remind
him, Naoko.
Naoko wants to convey something to Toru but always losses the track of what she is trying to say
because she gets wrong words that are opposite from what she means. She cries, "the other me has the right
words, but this me can‟t catch her" (Murakami, 1987; 25). Here „this me‟ is civilized Naoko who fails to
recognize the „other me‟ that is soul‟s contentment in fear of societal creeds. Even after that , she expects him to
remember her existence and stand for her even in his busy time. She knows that their innocent life of meadow is
over and her expectation sounds ridiculous in this challenging city like Tokyo as Toru cannot look after her all-
time even though they are a married couple. During the day, he has to work hard, and at night he has to keep his
physical and mental health in rest. Despite being mentally unstable, Naoko‟s institution works well. In her
loneliness, she sees the civilized hungers like Toru starving for life but find no idea until they stand on the edge
of their end. When they look back, they only see the untouched banquet. She sighs to Toru, "We grew up fast
and had to enter society, which is why you were so important to us. You were the link connecting us with the
outside. We were struggling through you to fit with the outside world as best we could. In the end, it didn‟t
work, of course" (Murakami, 1987; 170).
Toru promises her that he will listen to her, and with the time being, he will also help her solve her
problems as they are not keeping their life with the degree from an account book. Once he told her, "It takes me
a while to understand things. But if I do have the time, I will come to understand you--- better than anyone else
Civilized Morality and Discontents in Murakami's Norwegian Wood
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2511095964 www.iosrjournals.org 61 |Page
in the world" (Murakami, 1987; 9). Disappointedly, it is the harsh reality of modern civilization that every
individual has to be psychophysically fit to survive here. It requires so much from an individual that despite
having emotion, one cannot express it in the right way of the right time. So, Toru fails to stand for Naoko as he
could not manage time to understand her deeper, darker and colder agony in her current time. Also, the dark
morality of civilization makes Nagasawa‟s heart stony for Hatsumi. Quiet, caring and intelligent Hatsumi knows
well that he sleeps around with other girls, but she does not ever complain to him. Despite loving him seriously,
she never makes any demand to him. Being fed up of his indifference to her, she marries another man but
commits suicide later as her dejected mind cannot go forth with the cultural actualization.
Moreover, Like Naoko, Reiko in her conjugal life understands that her society will not let her husband
take up her neurotic sufferings for a long time and for the civic order he might wish to sacrifice his love for his
wife. Reiko says, "I didn‟t want to drag anyone down with me. I didn‟t want to force anyone to live in constant
fear that I might lose my mind at any moment" (Murakami, 1987; 212). She left her husband and lives with a
smiling face but with discontents. To Freud, "by „drowning our sorrows‟ we can escape any time from the
pressure of reality and find refuge in a world of our own that affords us better conditions for our sensibility"
(1930; 16). However, despite falling in love with Toru, Midori cannot confess it artlessly as she is entangled
between his present love with a boy and blooming love with Toru. Like Naoko, she also wishes to spend her
whole life with Toru, but in reality, it is not possible from both sides. She expresses her untold confession only
in her diary:
"I'd love to cook a stew for you
But I have no pot.
I'd love to knit a scarf for you,
But I have no wool.
I'd love to write a poem for you,
But I have no pen" (Murakami, 1987; 98).
V. PSYCHONEUROTIC DERIVATION
The worst psychological conflict for a living being is between what he knows and what he feels. In
modern society, the expression of personal declination or alienation is the reaction of „civilized sexual morality‟.
"The lonely Westernized story is well documented on Murakami‟s oriental book with the addition of tiny bits of
Japanese Zen. It seems to propose a more aggressive outburst of humanity at the threshold of the destruction
from the atomic bomb or of all the sicknesses or craziness that a person faces on a self-denial journey" (Hang
&Bac, 2019; 241). In this novel, all the characters are lightly or deeply go through some neurosis problem.
The attraction for the opposite gender and its contentment is good for mental and physical health.
„Sexual excitement‟ comes from the touch or feeling the‟ sex object‟. For men, women are sex objects, and men
are for women‟s object. Besides the opposite, often same sexual drive acts as „sex object‟ for a human being that
is the issue for Reiko, which Freud defines as „inversion‟. Typically for achieving the sexual goal, a certain level
of touching is necessary for human beings. To Freud, "the touch of the sexual object‟s skin constitutes , on the
one hand, a great source of pleasure and on the other a great influx of arousal" (1970; 133).
In contrast, socially progressive human beings find a restriction in enjoying such arousing sexual
pleasure because the power of civilized community always takes decisive steps claiming it right against the
emotional power of an individual. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud denotes, "on the one hand, love
comes into conflict with the interests of civilization; on the other, civilization threatens love with substantial
restrictions" (1930; 39). At 20 ages, being busy for self -exploration in the socialized culture, Toru provokes the
notion of his emotional expectation, saying that he is not sure whether he has ever fallen in love to anyone even
with Naoko. Moreover, mentally inconstant Naoko‟s way of approaching love is a little different from modern
fashion. Meeting, walking and doing sex with him, she substantially expects his heartfelt attention to cure her
nervous illness so that she can live her life with full content. At 37 ages, almost after twenty years, he realizes
that he fails to understand her approach and his redundant attention to her is also responsible for her physical
and spiritual decease. Carter argues, "Naoko is meant to be more than a friend but less than a lover for
Watanabe because she has the power to make him reach self-actualization and feel whole in his identity" (2017).
That is why, throughout the novel, he sticks his mind to Naoko‟s memory because in that time and even at
present, he needs her most than she needs him. Also, Carter criticizes, "Toru Watanabe is a lost man, left
without his lover. With a never-ending void in his sense of self to fill, Watanabe travels. Without Naoko to fill
the void in his reality, he will always be lost. Almost 40 years old, Watanabe is travelling alone, his plane taking
flight. He will always be alone without her to hold him together" (2017).
Civilized Morality and Discontents in Murakami's Norwegian Wood
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2511095964 www.iosrjournals.org 62 |Page
To take over the internal anxiety, most of the characters of the novel find the use of different defense
mechanism that is an automatic or unconscious behavior of our mental health. In the case of Naoko, Reiko states
that her bundles of neurotic problems are so badly mixed-up with one another that it is difficult to sort out a
single one. She always drags the memory of her beloved, dead Kizuki to trouble the peace of her mind and that
of others. Even in sleep, she gets scared of hearing the dead one‟s voice. When she is in open eyes, she also
hears the dead kizuki calling her from darkness to come to him. In psychoanalysis, such behavior is termed as
„Repression‟ that means storing unpleasant memories, thoughts and feelings in the unconscious level of mind.
Because of her repressed reaction, despite demanding sexual intercourse from Toru, she could not co-operate
him during intercourse. This might be either her „displacement‟ mechanism where she unconsciously wants
Kizuki‟s attachment from Toru but consciously fails or sex phobia as every girl bears va ginal pain in her first-
time sexual intercourse. Otherwise, it is her social phobia as "the fact that the curbs placed by civilization on
erotic life lead to the universal debasement of the sexual object may divert us from the objects to the drives
themselves" (Freud, 1970; 258). In this novel, other discontented leading figures: Toru, Reiko and Midori
unconsciously and consciously play „Reaction Formation‟ by behaving in a way which is opposite to the
feelings, thinks and behaviors that are considered unpleasant. In this way, Toru continues random sex with
anonymous girls. Instead of full sexual intercourse with Toru, Midori does hand-job unwillingly as Naoko‟s
spirit is in between them.
Moreover, "The sex that was had between Reiko and Watanabe was not romantically fueled. The
moment between the pair was an opportunity to reflect on their lives and change for the better" (Carter, 2017).
However, to Murakami‟s existing and solitary characters,the psychological disorder becomes a compulsory part
of their life. So, in one sense they all are alone inside themselves, and with the appetite of their mind, they live
in this civilized world to fulfill all the worldly needs.
VI. NOTHINGNESS IN EXISTENCE AND ABSENCE
Nothingness means feeling meaninglessness in one‟s own existence. It crawls in the heart of human
beings like a slither. "There is an element of despair in human existence, which comes, Sartre says, from the
realization that we are limited to what is within the scope of our wills. We cannot expect more from our
existence than the infinite probabilities it possesses" (Stumpf&Fieser, 2008; 435-436). The ultimate goal of a
being is exercising his freewill. When he exists in the world, viewing it as „being -in- itself‟, he has to be
situational that means to act about other people‟s choice. Then out of discontents, finitude like despair,
guiltiness and loneliness start developing in his mind, and he feels nothingness in anything or with anyone
present or absent. "In Norwegian Wood, the characters encounter a defect and a hollow self. They are aware of
the imperfection and try not to refine, but to adapt to that imperfection. Tragically, the more they try to adapt,
the more they discover that there are things that cannot be adopted" (Hang &Bac, 2019; 242).
At the end of the novel, Midori ask Toru,
"„Where are you now?‟
„Where was I now?
Gripping the receiver, I raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the phone box. Where was I
now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? … Again and again, I called out for Midori from the
dead Centre of this place that was no place‟" (Murakami, 1987; 386).
It is Toru‟s abrupt existential crisis after Naoko‟s sudden death. After her e ternal departure, he never
sleeps with any random girl but once with Reiko and finds no comfort in his ached soul. Since he believes, "I
am a born optimistic" (Murakami, 1987; 314), after Reiko‟s leaving for Asahikawa, he seeks Midori‟s
indulgence to fill the void of his existence, but he loses the key of his soul to let Midori enter. When she wants
to know actually how he is, he gets his paralyzed brain not responded and finds himself fastened in a cold-
blooded place alone.
Every living being has to taste death one day. In the cosmic level, our life is not a handful of dust as
every creature is created for a significant purpose. In the ebb and flow of our life, everybody cannot fulfill
his/her life-motto within a limited period. For this failure, except fate, we the individuals are also responsible for
creating blockades to make our life meaningless. In the novel, this meaninglessness is connected with the
presence or absence of their interpersonal relationship with others they meet. Out of depression, frustration and
guiltiness, death seems an easy option for all characters to free the souls from nothingness. So they bluntly
question why committing suicide is not preferable. Despite having a family, childhood friend, Watanabe and
lovely girlfriend, Naoko, Kizuki commits suicide, and nobody finds out what his soul‟s discontents are. Might
be Kizuki does not feel his loved ones fit to meet his expectations. His death makes Naoko‟s trauma „strictly
psychological‟ and Toru‟s life a living dead. Mentally both of them are attached to Kizuki in such extend that
Naoko has to die with dead Kizuki‟s memory and to Toru, "death exists, not as the opposite of life but as a part
of life" (Murakami, 1987; 30). When Naoko‟s dying soul needs Toru most, like her family he ca nnot also give
Civilized Morality and Discontents in Murakami's Norwegian Wood
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her good mental ailment because to satisfy his physical cravings, he runs after random and non-platonic sex and
dooms to nothingness more. According to James, "Since sex is presented as a safety -valve and escape
mechanism for alienated and stressed-out youth, this is not altogether" (2011; 137-138). Nagasawa rightly
comments, "there‟s always some part of him somewhere that‟s wide awake and detached. He just has that
hunger that won‟t go away" (Murakami, 1987; 277).
Since sexuality is an essential part of our life, Toru‟s frustration out of unoccupied feelings is also a
result of sexual unhappiness that his platonic lover, Naoko fails to give him. So, we cannot all alone blame Toru,
an everyday youth, for his improper sincerity for her because his civilized morality makes him helpless in
managing his biological content and social content that creates discontent in his another world with Naoko. "The
duality in Toru is a duality that exists in every modern man. But, this duality raises a moral dilemma and a
question on the face of modern love" (Islam, 2018). Being hopeless and more loneliness from her trusted ones
of the total civilized system, Naoko also commits suicide in a distant sanatorium. Her death makes Toru reach
another level of existential crisis where he feels guilty for her tragedy. He agonizes, "but I can‟t forget her. I
told Naoko I would go on waiting for her, but I couldn‟t do it. I turned my back on her in the end…. Naoko was
choosing death all along" (Murakami, 1987; 379). Like Naoko, alienated "Hatsumi reached a certain stage of
life and decided--- almost on the spur of the moment to end it" (Murakami, 1987; 278). At the end of the novel,
like Toru, passionately deprived Reiko and Midori also fight to survive by challenging more uncertainty.
VII. CONCLUSION
Civilization provides all kinds of arrangement to build up a socially dignified life. When the external
world restricts the freedom of our self-expectations, parts of our "mental life- perceptions, thoughts feelings ---
seem alien" (Freud, 1930; 5) to our consciousness.Then despite enjoying the facilities of civilization, we mourn
for our lost contents of soul and mind at the end of the day and fall in total frustration, depression and anxiety.
In Norwegian Wood, every youth goes through psychological conflict in choosing either individual happiness or
civilization, but all of them lose their soul to civilization. For a better life, Naoko and Toru leave the rural Kobe
to more civilized and challenging city, Tokyo. In the same city, Reiko wants to be a heartthrob pianist, Midori
dreams of exploring herself in the drama world, and Nagasawa and Hatsumi going ahead to the pursuit of
happiness. Despite struggling altogether for better livelihood, at the end of the busy road, they find themselves
desolate and companionless because the way of social progress is becoming accessible for them where platonic
love is growing obsolete. Toru and Nagasawa‟s reckless sexuality, Kizuki, Naoko and Hatsumi‟s committing
suicide, in fear of homosexual assault Reiko‟s leaving her marriage to be a straggling traveller, and finally Toru
and Midori‟s walking to no destination- all are the discontents of modern civilization. Though every
individual‟s discontents are linked with each other‟s indifference and reluctant psychophysical assistance, we
cannot solely blame any particular man because nobody‟s mind is right that is understood by nobody. Like
Murakami, Robert Lowell also interprets human‟s discontents from civilized morality in his poem, „Skunk
Hour‟:
"A car radio bleats,
"Love, O careless Love. . . ." I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody's here—" (1958).
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Tanzin Sultana, et. al. "Civilized Morality and Discontents in HarukiMurakami‟s Norwegian
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ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
-
![Tanzin Sultana]()
The purpose of this paper is to discuss comparatively Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Waliullah's Tree Without Roots to address the social and religious challenges behind the psychology of a man. Dimmesdale and Majeed are not hypocritical. Nathaniel Hawthorne is an important American novelist from the 19th century, while Syed Waliullah is a famous South Asian novelist from the 20th century. Despite being the authors of two different nations, there is a conformity between them in presenting the vulnerability of Dimmesdale and Majeed in their novels. Whether a religious practice or not, a faithful religion is a matter of a set conviction or a force of omnipotence. If a man of any class in an unfixed socio-religious environment finds that he is unable to survive financially or to fulfill his latent propensity, he subtly plays with that fixed belief. In The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan Church minister, Arthur Dimmesdale cannot publicly confess that he is also a co-sinner of Hester's adultery in Salem. In Tree Without Roots, Majeed knows that the 'Mazar of Saint Shah Sadeque' is a lie to the ignorant people of Mahabbatpur. There is also a similarity, however, between Dimmesdale and Majeed. They understand the cruelty of man-made, unsettled social and religious verdicts against a man's emotional and physical needs. So, despite suffering from inner torment against goodness and evil, they are not willing to reveal their truth of wrongdoing in public action to save their status as well to survive.
Being the Other Woman: Watanabe"s unrequited Love for Naoko in Norwegian Wood
- G Carter
Carter, G. (2017). "Being the Other Woman: Watanabe"s unrequited Love for Naoko in Norwegian Wood". PrizewinnersatAugustana Digital Commons.
Norwegian Wood (Jay Rubin Tr.). Vintage Books: London
- H Murakami
Murakami, H. (1987). Norwegian Wood (Jay Rubin Tr.). Vintage Books: London. Print.
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Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346717877_Civilized_Morality_and_Discontents_in_Haruki_Murakami%27s_Norwegian_Wood
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