村上春樹『ノルウェイの森』における「白夜」

Abstract

The soul of individuals is supposed to be free. Memory belongs to their past. Particularly the painfulmemories of individuals lead them to imprisonment, thereby tending to bring about death. The sufferingfrom the memories of the past up to death makes our life futile. In this case, that very individual has tochoose to escape from the empty bottle in which he is encased, because his life in the bottle tends to beanxious about his own life and further to kill others. Game is a symbol of capitalist society, and theaddiction to the game leads to devastation of the addicted people's life. Imagination is a new memory of the past. The imagination, joyous and happy, helps the soul ofsuffering individual escape from the past; new imagination helps throw away the painful memories of thepast, and the very new memory remains simple stories in the individual. A large scale stories dwindlesthose of simple memories. Warm souls between people should combine to console each other and helpescape from the hellish situation. A highly developed capitalist system asks individuals to have professional skills which play a role likea part of machine. But we are not sure that the professional talents create perfect humans. In manycases, the professional skills lead into imperfect human. An exclusive specialization to win competitionbreeds a dangerous obstacle to the other side of our life. Murakami Haruki's Norwegian Wood is a good cure to modern people who want to strengthen theirvolition to overcome modern maladies. The way he shows how to liberate his/ her soul from alienationand painful situation contributes to shaping the imagination of hopeful future.