Gender In Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood And Clarwood

Texts can be esteemed as posing linguistic reflections of the society in which they are composed, and as such, they help construct and perpetuate existing and emerging representations of different individuals and groups. Evidently, the construction and presentation of gender has been explored, exploited and reinvented throughout the course of literary history. With the influx of feminist writers emerging in the early and mid-twentieth century, the socially accepted presentations of gender were being questioned, and the stifling restrictions of a patriarchal society became disentangled both in writing and in reality. This essay will examine and critique the construction and presentation of gender in Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” and Clarice

As the story progresses, Ofelia departs and the narrator discovers that the girl has killed the small animal, and it is not known whether she has killed it intentionally or by accident. Consequently, Lispector’s inclusion of chick’s death is representative of gender constructions in a number of ways. Firstly, the chick itself is symbolic of the act of motherhood, as proposed by Marting (2001), and in killing the chick, Ofelia has perhaps rejected the notion that she is expected to be a nurturer and a mother. In doing so, Ofelia has realised that she does, in fact, possess power over her choices and can exempt herself from the repressed, societal restriction enforced upon her. Alternatively, Ofelia’s killing of the chick signifies the girl’s unpreparedness for the role of motherhood, which in itself questions the gendered expectation that all women are inevitably predisposed to be capable mothers. Evidently, the narrator’s sympathetic response, advising her not to be “frightened” and that people need to “learn how to love” (p. 101), accentuates the notion that women can be as equally unprepared for parenthood as men, thereby rejecting the social assumption that a woman’s ultimate aspiration and purpose is to be a subservient nurturer. Subsequently, Lispector also posits the nature of female desire, as evident in Ofelia’s selfish desire to play with the chick. Although brief and vague, Ofelia’s desire for the chick, and the seemingly tortuous transformation she underwent to achieve it, epitomises the internal conflict endured by women when confronted with desire and pleasure. When closely examined, Ofelia’s initial hesitation to act upon her desire reflects the confined limitations placed on women, whom, unlike men, are often conditioned to be submissive and to not possess any real aspiration