Through the semester, we have been examining the way writers present themes and truths as they see them. One of the strategies we have been examining is how writers may be inspired by real life, but then transform real life into fiction in order to show the truths they are presenting. The author Haruki Murakami writes in many genres. Discuss how he uses magical realism or fantasy to examine the impact of real life events that occurred in Japan in the 1990’s. Why do you think he decided to use magical realism or fantasy for the ideas and truths he is examining in this story? Quote scenes that show the real life ideas and concerns that Murakami examines in the story. Explain what you think Murakami is saying about those real life concerns.
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“Frog tilted back his head and flexed the muscles of his huge throat Ribit, Ri-i-i-bit, Ribit ribit ribit Ribit Ribit Ri-i-i bit” (P. 3 of 14).
“A very, very big earthquake. It is set to strike Tokyo at 8:30 A.M. on February 18. Three days from now. A much bigger earthquake than the one that struck Kobe last month. The number of dead from such a quake would probably exceed 150,000—mostly from accidents involving the commuter system: derailments, falling vehicles, crashes, the collapse of elevated expressways and rail lines, the crushing of subways, the explosion of tanker trucks” (P. 3 of 14).
In the short story “Super-Frog saves Tokyo,” we see how author Haruki Murakami uses magical realism to present real life events and truths. First, Murakami presents a man size frog that stands and talks like a normal human being. The Frog does not only know how to communicate ideas fluently, but he is also well read. He certainly knows his literary canon, going from Ernest Hemingway to Franz Kafka. These were two authors that used their characters to present their ideas of the human inner psychological battle. Through the character of Mr. Katagiri and his encounter with Frog, Murakami presents the psychological battle that Katagiri undergoes. Throughout the story, Murakami reveals real life events and truths through Frog’s dialogue. On two occasions Murakami mentions the tragic earthquake that devastated his native hometown of Kobe. He takes this real life tragedy and uses magical realism to shed light on the human condition. The croaking of Frog and his fluent speech is only part of his effective use of magical realism in a normal setting like Mr. Katagiri’s apartment.
Wonderful and thorough response.
I believe Murakami used magical realism in this piece to lighten the tone on such heavy-loaded, horrific catastrophes that occurred in his hometown. By introducing fantasy about traumatic incidents that occurred in real time, Murakami not only informs but engages the reader as well. He uses fantasy to show how the imagination is a powerful, cognitive tool. The scene in the bank where Katagiri receives a call at his desk explains this.
“Tell me, Frog, Katagiri said. What did you do to them?”
“Oh, nothing much, Frog said.
… “A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel toward their imagination” (pg.7).
The imagination is a mental state where anyone can explore true freedom. That is why Frog was apologetic to Mr. Katagiri for waiting for him in his apartment, because the imagination is supposed to be very, secure place where only the one imagining has access. Murakami uses magical realism to portray how real-life catastrophes can be the cause of “psychological terror”, resulting in a positive or negative effect.
Yes, I think you’re right that one of the ideas that Murakami is exploring is the psychological experience of an catastrophic event. A catastrophic event can be experienced as fantastical.
“Worm ? Who’s worm?”
” Worm lives underground. He is a gigantic worm. When he gets angry he causes earthquakes,” said Frog. “And right now he is very very angry.”
“What is he angry about?” Katagiri asked.
“I have know idea,” Frog said. {Pg. 4}
Here, Murakami is showing his real life concern of the 1995 earthquake that struck his hometown of Kobe in January, and following only two months after, a deadly sarin gas that was released into the train stations of Tokyo city. Murakami seems to be making light of a rather dark real life situation though writing his fiction story “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo.” In this dialogue, Frog tries to explain why he needs Katagiri’s help in defeating Worm from casing Tokyo’s total destruction. Though the situations and turn of events in the story are indeed quite funny, the realities in which they or born from are not. I believe Murakami wrote this fiction story as a way of helping the Japanese people cope with the tragedy.
Within the story Super Frog Saves Tokyo Mr. katagiri is describing the way the frog is dying while lying in the chair of a hospital. The lines “Then all of a sudden one of the boils burst with a loud pop. the skin flew off and a sticky liquid oozed out sending a horible smal across the room. the rest of the boils started popping one after another twenty or thirty in all, flinging skin and fluid onto the walls…” (page 13) show a realistic event turned into fantasy. I believe Murakami uses this “cover up” with fantasy in order to symblize the real event that happened in Japan in March 1995. The dscription of the frog exploding symbolies the thousands of people who died as a result of the crumbling buldings and home. I believe that the fact that the frog has died symbolizes the truth about many people dying even after they had made it to the hospital and were trying to stay alive. This symbolic scene greatly shows how Murakami takes real life events and converts them to magical fiction in order to still tell the truth about life events but in a different manner.
Excellent scene to analyze.
I like that Murakami used magical realism to tackle real life situations but also made them humorous at the same time. On page 2 while Frog is intrdoducing himself he says “I know you are thinkning that I must be mad or that you are having some kind of dream, but I am not crazy and you are not dreaming. This is absolutely positively serious”. It humourous because he is taking a dream like scene and calling it serious. He then makes another serious situation seem serious. When Katagiri askes Frog if he is part of a gang, Frog replies “There may be a shortage of skilled labor, but what gang is going to hire a frog to do thier dirty work?” Murakami is making a reference to the Aum Shinrikyo train cult. Murakami uses magical realism to make the situation seem less serious and it stirs up less painful emotions to the reader.
On page 11, Frog is explaining to Katagiri what happened with the battle against Worm. Katagiri is under the impression that he missed his meeting with Frog due to the attack by a man he experienced. Frog goes on to say “The terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there that we experience our victories and defeat.” While Frog is speaking of the fight with Worm, one can interpret these lines in many other ways. For someone who does not know about the tragic earthquakes that happened in Japan, they can see this as someone learning to accept defeat and losses in their own minds. This is because the human condition at times has a hard time accepting and understanding reality versus your own perception. One can interpret that this is about the psychological conflicts that we as humans face everyday. In knowing that Murakami is speaking about the tragedies that happened in Japan, we can view this scene as Murakami himself coming to terms with the tragic events. It is first in the mind that we must accept realities in order to truly process them. The image of the battle field in the mind is a great form of magical realism because we as humans tend to face conflicts within ourselves that we have difficulty accepting or coming to terms with.
“Neither do I,” Frog said, his eyes still closed. “it’s just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me. Inside me is the un- me. My brain is growing murky. The locomotive is coming. But I really want you to understand what I am saying, Mr. katagiri” pg. 12
I feel like the author uses magical realism only because it was an interesting and entertaining way to explore a serious topic/ issue. This genre combined an undoing topic with a comedic twist.
In this portion, I feel like the author is talking about the unconsciousness of the people of the world. When he says ” what you see with your eyes is not necessarily real” and for the most part when global and economic issues are going on around the world, we as the people and society only get to see what the government shows us and for the most part we except whatever is feed to us. For example, we discussed the com paining and voting in the previous class. The voter will know very little about to candidate and will still vote based on her say or what we feel is reliable enough to vote.
In the piece, the author does a good job exposing the problem causers in the world as far as the ” government and the people” are concerned. While the government is not being rn properly and has a lot to do with most of the countries underlying issues, the people are not doing enough to fight avaunt the causes the only trouble us in the end
“The kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku was a labyrinth of violence: old-time gangsters, Korean mobsters, Chinese Mafia, guns and drugs, money flowing beneath the surface from one murky den to another, people vanishing every now and then like puffs of smoke.” (pg. 4)
In this segment, Murakimi discloses the social problems of Japan in a more obvious manner, so this portion is different than having these problems represented in a more symbolic way without outright mention as he does in the rest of the story. He even expresses the idea of underlying problems when he says “beneath the surface” this is represented by worm. He continues this idea by writing “vanishing like puffs of smoke.” in that the murder and death of people goes unnoticed and the people are just forgotten. They vanish as smoke does in the air.
The frog represents the responsible man who has to take on much larger responsibilities than himself. The large frog is small compared to the size of the worm.
The worm represents the underlying conflicts that most people are blind to. It is massive in size and feeds on the negative aspects of society. It’s brain has turned to jelly so that it is useless in producing any solutions to these social problems.
For me Murakami seemed to be creating a battle between a man and his conscience in the modern world. Distraught with how the world has played out, Katagiri’s problems with society manifest themselves in the form of a giant talking frog. This frog seems eager to battle the evil that society is so quick to forget. The frog convinces Katagiri that there is a giant worm set to destroy tokyo the following week. This worm not only represents the real life events that occured in Japan in 1995, they represent the overarching problems in society that nobody wants to confess to. Society is so quick to ignore or bury the real problems affecting our world, choosing to focus solely on the surface problems. It’s up to Katagiri and Frog to save the world alone and without recognition. That seems to be the major point to take away from the short; that although it may not always be appealing to do the right thing, we on an individual level are the only ones capable of making changes. Recognizing and accepting a problem is the first step to society fixing it. And it’s the unsung heros like Katagiri and Frog that really matter in this world, even if they don’t receive the proper recognition for it.
For me Murakami uses the fantasy element as an attention seeking way to bring light to the problems he discusses in this story. Think about it, if it would’ve been a ghost or just another human being, the protagonist of the story wouldn’t have paid any attention to him. The over-all theme of this story revolves around the piece of dialogue from the frog on pg 3 near the bottom that states “People will be made to realize what a fragile condition the intensive collectivity known as ‘city’ really is.” with that line, Murakami expresses the whole reason for the story and why an earthquake would ruin Tokyo, because people have become too dependent on their modernization that simple things like value and character are becoming lost which is why the frog chooses the Katagiri as the one to help him defeat the worm. In a way the author is saying to us the readers that our complete disregard of the simple foundations of what it means to be an honorable person, or a person with great character is what is going to eventually destroy us.