Japanese Society Through the Narrative of Solitude and Relational Emotions : Focusing on the Works of Haruki Murakami

This study examines the narratives in Haruki Murakami's with a focus on the emotions of his characters. By analyzing the emotions experienced and the choices driven by those emotions, this study aims to capture the sentiments and lifestyles of various Japanese characters navigating a tumultuous time period (the late 20th and early 21st centuries) in Japanese society. Haruki Murakami identifies issues and feelings of discomfort in Japanese society, where the pervasive collective atmosphere of an organized social structure often takes precedence over individual existence and emotions. Rather than overlooking the diverse emotions arising from human relationships and circumstances, he uses them as a foundation to reflect the realities of the time period in his writings. This study explores the aspects of solitude in Haruki Murakami's characters and the emotional characteristics shaped by their relationships to better understand the historical and relational emotions permeating within Japanese society. Its significance is in its focus on the inner lives of individuals navigating the tumultuous currents of modern Japanese society, encompassing relational emotions to propose a new perspective for interpretation.