Tokyo today Literature & Language Essay Research Paper

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Tokyo Today
Introduction
Haruki Murakami’s novel, Norwegian Wood, paints a vivid picture of the rampant occurrence of suicide cases through the lens of both the victims and survivors of such tragedies. Haruki’s work in the non-fictional accounts of the 1995 gas attack in Tokyo, Underground, further creates an understanding of the traditional and historical practices of the society’s way of life in the current generation. Both novels serve to provide an effective platform for the comprehensive analysis of life in Tokyo today in relation to the rising rate of suicide cases among the urban dwellers. In essence, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is a vivid representation of the rising cases of suicides in Japanese capital of Tokyo, which forms a strong correlation with the traditional and historical practices or traditions of the city as portrayed in his other work, Underground. Gibson’s Theory of Affordances further offers valuable insights in the effort to establish the underlying reasons for the rapid rise in the vice and people’s ability or lack thereof to cope with their life situations or circumstances.
According to Gibson’s Theory of Affordances, human beings find comfort in various aspects of their physical, emotional or psychological environments depending on their immediate needs (Gibson, p.127). The outlined environments sustain their development and ability to cope or overcome life challenges across the different domains. A new geographic environment, for instance, can offer an individual a new opportunity to start over by providing them with a different perception of life. In the new environments, one may choose to adopt new values, traditions, or practices that make their lives more comfortable or end up destroying themselves. Embracing positive aspects from the new environment can lead to equally rewarding outcomes while negative or unfavorable conditions may lead to more frustrations or confusion in life. Norwegian Wood depicts the emotional and psychological challenges facing the people of Tokyo today in that everyone seeks a way out of their situations by seeking or adopting new identities. The city life is in itself full of new challenges as it offers new perceptions of life that demand a paradigm shift from the rather traditional way of life led by the individuals in their previous places of origin. The diverse accounts given by the interviewees in Murakami’s Underground reiterate on the city’s life experiences coupled with its traditional practices in the day to day activities. Murakami’s effort to gather information from the victim’s and their diverse accounts of the ordeal as it unfolded, for instance, reveals the individualistic way of life adopted by most of the city dwellers. A majority of the victims prefer keeping to themselves the effects of the gas attack on the pretence of being less afflicted by the tragic event. Some would refuse her advances saying, “I would rather forget the whole incident,” (H. Murakami, p.5). People in Tokyo are not comfortable sharing or expressing their feelings to one another and thus creating an introvert society. Consequently, such individuals end up s...