무라카미 하루키(村上春樹)의『 노르웨이의 숲(ノルウェイの森)』론 - 등장인물들의 자폐적 성향을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The present article considers the relation between humanity and human spirit by examining the story of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, where the protagonist, Naoko, mentally suffered because of the death of her loved one and led to death. I concentrate on the point that all characters of the novel, including Naoko, could not be engaged in a sound sexual relationship. Also, I consider why Haruki Murakami wrote a novel that addresses the internal aspects of humans by paying attention to the closedness of space and the autistic character of humans, as often portrayed in Murakami’s work. Further, Murakami himself viewed as Norwegian Wood as a love story in its strictest sense, but I object to this opinion. I surmise that the mental world becomes incomplete due to the problems of sex and that in connection with this, human pathological issues arise. I thus survey the ways in which the domain of sex affects humans and determines their behavioural aspects. Finally, I examine how the characters struggle to overcome their mental problems with the purpose of considering why Murakami portrayed the autistic persons.