Here are possible paper topics--your assignment over the break is to finish reading Kafka on the Shore
Then complete a blog--due Sunday night, May 1. (I need to be able to read them before Tuesday class.) This blog is beginning of your essay on Kafka on the Shore. It will be graded!
Choose one of the topics below (or create one) and write a paragraph about it that we can critique in class Tuesday. Answer the question in the prompt and provide 2-3 examples from the novel, ideally with a quote or two!
1. Kafka talks about time expanding in Chapter 21--this is important! Examine scenes where time has expanded to include something new, like the young Miss Saeki. What does this new item provide Kafka? How does it enlarge his mind, heart; begin to heal him?
2. What is interesting about Nakata? Do a little character sketch. What are his main qualities? Why is his response to things so fresh and charming? How is he smarter than he thinks? What does Nakata make us think about in human relationships? Why does Murakami develop this kind of character?
3. Analyse the idea of isolation in the novel. Kafka, Oshima, Nakata, Miss Saeki are all isolated. How and why? Is isolation necessary for knowledge? Explain how each character is learning something important (choose 2).
4. "Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves" (297). A number of characters are seeking their other halves, or they are on a quest even if they don't know what for. Examine how two characters find their other half--through another--or through a metaphorical struggle of some kind. What exactly is the "other half"? What knowledge does the other half supply?*
5. Note that in Chapter 37, Oshima explains to Kafka, "Things outside you are projections of things inside you." Do a reading of the novel in which you "explain" what happens as Kafka's dream or an exploration of Kafka's subconscious.
6. Focus an essay around what happens to Kafka when he goes into the woods a second time (Chapter 41). What are the woods exactly? Who is there, literally or metaphorically? What is the central drama enacted here? What gets resolved?
7. Focus an essay on the idea of the library. There is the original library in Kafka's father's study, a library in the cabin in the woods, the library where Oshima works and Nakata in Chapter 32 speaks of how he is a library without books! What are libraries metaphorically? Why are they important?
8. Build an essay around the idea of the guide: How does Oshima guide Kafka--select key passages and define his role, his wisdom. Sometimes he takes Kafka to the "door" (e.g. of forest) but does not enter himself. Look up what guides do! See Joseph Campbell.
9. Examine how time works in this novel by zeroing in on Miss Saeki (all versions) and her life story as it intersects with Kafka's. How does the novel cut into time, show characters evading the boundaries of time in order to fulfill their needs, complete their journeys?
10. There is a lot of wisdom in this novel. Pick your favorite passage and think about how it represents an important theme. Explain the theme and connect the passage you have chosen to a character or other important moments in the novel.
*A simple example of finding your other half would be Hoshino and Nakata. See Chapter 35. Hoshino reflects on what Nakata has given him.
Analyse the idea of isolation in the novel. Kafka, Oshima, Nakata, Miss Saeki are all isolated. How and why? Is isolation necessary for knowledge? Explain how each character is learning something important (choose 2).
ReplyDeleteThis is the question I choose and I think those three characters different abilities that can make them far away from others. They don't really have friends because of what happened before to them that makes them get a part from others. For example Ms. Saeki is one of them character who doesn't really talk with others because of accident of her boyfriend. Nakata is one of them unique character who talks to cats the suddenly can make fall something from them sky. Oshima is girl but represented in the story as in man because he feels that way. Kafka who is always trying to look for his identity and travels too many places each times.
Good start Nigora--You are right about lack of friendship for all of them. Now go to other questions. What is each character looking for? What do they find?
ReplyDelete2. What is interesting about Nakata? Do a little character sketch. What are his main qualities? Why is his response to things so fresh and charming? How is he smarter than he thinks? What does Nakata make us think about in human relationships? Why does Murakami develop this kind of character?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stands out to me is when Oshima tell's Kafka "The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. Well before Freud and Jung shined a light on the workings of the subconscious, this correlation between darkness and our subconscious, these two forms of darkness, was obvious to people."
However, this was not the case with Nakata. Its up to the reader if Nakata's childhood misfortune is a curse or a blessing, but to me it was a blessing. His main qualities are honesty, ignorance(in a very endearing way), humility and gratitude. His response to things are so fresh and charming because for many of us readers, we have been tainted by the sorrows and hardships of this life. Where Kafka, Oshima, and Saeki are all defined by this underlining sadness, a need to understand and escape this sadness, Nakata is driven by a sense of hope. Everything about him is simple and elemental, to his profession in wood working, to his gardening, to being able to speak with cats, to his daily routine to the fact that he was able to set back Hoshino's misplaced bones. Nakata is smarter than the thinks because being smart is not something he strives to do. He has no sense of inquisitiveness, just a basic need to do good. When it comes to human relationships, Nakata makes me think about the importance of remaining true to yourself, especially in the face of betrayal. I literally cried when I read about Nakata's life, with his parents and brothers paying him no mind and his cousin taking advantage of him. Nakata is not bright, but I don't believe that he is without emotion. Nakata just kept on being Nakata, a good man. Also Nakata was always fair and honest with everyone he met. I like to think that we have some people out in the world like that. I think Murakami developed this kind of character for a few reasons(I'm still confused about the Nakata monster in the end so I have to re-examine it), but I think that in the beginning half of the novel Nakata's story gives the reader a sense that bizarre things can and will happen in this novel, sort of a way to set up the world and tone we as readers are playing in. In one story we have a seemingly normal story of a boy running away from home, but on the other hand, a man who can talk to cats who already stems from mystery. When Kafka's world starts becoming a bit more surreal, its not as unbelievable. Also in the second half of the novel, I feel like Nakata becomes for Hoshino what Oshima is for Kafka.
lovely reading of Nakata Kenneth--he is so purely good and honest that he becomes a kind of conduit for Kafka's journey--which is interesting, no? Only the pure of heart can see true? We'll talk about this in class today!
ReplyDeleteI would like discusss how Kafka and Nakata both dealt with their path in different ways and guides that were there to help them.
ReplyDeleteKafka and Nakata are in parallel paradox into a journey of self-relation as they unravel discovery into their fate. Unknowing that their paths will overlap. They both share a vague memory of their past but go different venture on their pilgrimage.