Haruki Murakami’s Postmodern Space Writing

In Haruki Murakami’s novels,postmodern context,space and people are connected with each other.On the one hand,the post-modern social stage has affected Haruki Murakami’s space writing,space itself inevitably has post-modern characteristics,but also represents the state of human existence in the post-modern society.On the other hand,people also think about themselves in space.Haruki Murakami responds to postmodernism by creating space,reflecting on how to survive better in the postmodern environment.The space in Haruki Murakami’s works can be divided into three categories: the physical space to show the postmodern living conditions,the virtual space to symbolize the postmodern spiritual world,and the third space to ask for the postmodern way out.The purpose of this paper is to classify the space types of Haruki Murakami and to explore its ideological value.The first chapter is the general introduction,which introduces the related theories and gives an overall overview of the last three chapters.The topic of Haruki Murakami’s research is the background of the post-modern era and the trend of thought of post-modernism.Therefore,the first chapter gives an overall account to pave the way for the later three chapters.First of all,Murakami constructs three kinds of space forms: entity space,virtual space and the third space to create a post-modern society’s atmosphere of consumption and sensibility,and to show the loneliness of post-modern people after the disappearance of subject,self and emotion.Starting from the situation of human beings,Haruki Murakami began to reflect on the consumer society.Secondly,the post-modern spirit means tolerance and openness,tolerance of diversity and pursuit of differences.After being constructed by Haruki Murakami,space becomes the objective other.It bears the post-modern spirit and becomes the field of dialogue and understanding between the protagonists and between the protagonists and the readers.In addition,space also dispels the modern meta narrative.Finally,space is an ideographic text in Murakami’s works.This emphasis on the meaning of space is closely related to the space turn of the ideological and theoretical circles in the post-modern period.The third chapter discusses the virtual space,which reflects the spiritual state of post-modern people.Different from the visible sense of physical space,virtual space does not have entity,so it is not touchable.Specifically speaking,there are two types of virtual space in Murakami’s works.One is the dream space constructed by human’s subconsciousness,which is the key to explore the character’s heart and shows human’s spiritual world.The other is music space.Murakami mentions a considerable number of jazz,pop and classical music in his novels.The flow of music casts a layer of illusory color on the physical space,and the atmosphere and artistic conception it creates constitute a virtual music space.Music space and characters’ spiritual world communicate and mirror each other,showing the spiritual world of post-modern people.Music space also provides a place for people to live poetically,in order to alleviate the trauma of people in the post-modern society.The third chapter discusses the virtual space,which reflects the spiritual state of post-modern people.Different from the visible sense of physical space,virtual space does not have entity,so it is not touchable.Specifically speaking,there are two types of virtual space in Murakami’s works.One is the dream space constructed by human’s subconsciousness,which is the key to explore the character’s heart and shows human’s spiritual world.The other is music space.Murakami mentions a considerable number of jazz,pop and classical music in his novels.The flow of music casts a layer of illusory color on the physical space,and the atmosphere and artistic conception it creates constitute a virtual music space.Music space and characters’ spiritual world communicate and mirror each other,showing the spiritual world of post-modern people.Music space also provides a place for people to live poetically,in order to alleviate the trauma of people in the post-modern society.The fourth chapter discusses the third space and analyzes the problem of where people go in the post-modern society.The third space is the type of space proposed by Edward Sawyer,which is a marginal space connecting reality and spirit,reality and fiction,in which a variety of things coexist.The third space is an open thinking space,which is fuzzy and connected,that is,the combination of virtual and real,connectivity and reflection are the natural characteristics of the third space.The third space in Murakami’s works also has the characteristics of combination of virtual and real,connectivity and reflection.Murakami’s third space has three types and three functions: a fairytale dreamland in the cold reality,which can save and comfort the tortured people’s soul;On the other side of the space,the split personality of people in the post-modern society sojourns in it;The space of personal exploration and discovery,in which human growth is realized.