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Global Experience, Fate, Discussion Questions, (Connection: Both books…

- - - - Inner vs. Outer Self
        
        Connection: Each character’s struggle highlights the tension between who they are internally and how they are seen or forced to behave externally.
        
        The Vegetarian: Yeong-hye’s internal world (expressed through dreams and hallucinations) is completely at odds with how her family sees her.
        
        Kafka on the Shore: Kafka’s external flight mirrors an internal quest for self-knowledge. He feels split between the rational and irrational, the real and the imagined.
        
        Swing Time: The narrator’s internal doubts, jealousy, and longing are never voiced, even as she carefully curates her outward behavior. Natalie/Keisha embodies this theme too, especially in her reinvention.
      - Societal Roles
        
        Connection: These texts question the cost of stepping outside expected roles and the societal punishment for those who refuse to perform.
        
        The Vegetarian: Yeong-hye refuses her expected role as an obedient wife, which causes her family and husband to lash out. Her rejection of the role triggers their need to reassert control.
        
        Kafka on the Shore: Characters play roles shaped by destiny and prophecy Kafka as the “son,” Nakata as a “prophet,” Miss Saeki as a “memory keeper.”
        
        Swing Time: Tracey adopts the role of a performer literally and figuratively trapped in the cycle of performing both femininity and working-class survival. The narrator “performs” professionalism and loyalty to Aimee despite personal misgivings.
      - Performativity
        
        Connection: All three texts explore how people consciously or unconsciously perform aspects of their identity in response to social expectations.
        
        The Vegetarian: Yeong-hye is turned into a spectacle her family imposes meanings onto her body and choices, reducing her autonomy. Her silence is performative but defiant.
        
        Kafka on the Shore: Life itself feels theatrical; Kafka seems aware he is “playing” a role in a metaphysical script.
        
        Swing Time: Tracey performs blackness and femininity for an audience (onstage and off). The narrator performs whiteness/professionalism to fit into elite spaces. Aimee performs humanitarianism.
      - Invisibility
        
        Connection: All three characters lose autonomy and recognition as they try to assert their identities; society often erases or ignores those who deviate.
        
        The Vegetarian: Yeong-hye becomes socially invisible after refusing to eat meat others treat her not as a person, but as a problem or spectacle.
        
        Kafka on the Shore: Kafka isolates himself and disappears from his known life, becoming “invisible” to society in order to form a new identity.
        
        Swing Time: The narrator remains unnamed, reflecting her emotional invisibility and marginalization both in her friendships (especially with Tracey) and in her job working for Aimee.
- - - - Rebellion
        
        Janina’s actions in Drive Your Plow over the bones of the dead are a full-on rebellion against the corrupt structures in her town. She doesn’t protest in the streets, but she rebels by breaking the law and turning morality on its head.
        
        In Swing Time, Tracey’s entire life feels like a rebellion against expectations. She refuses to follow the “success” path and instead leans into her own messiness, even if it means losing opportunities.
        
        Why it matters: Both characters reject what society expects from them, but they do it in completely different ways. One uses quiet violence, the other uses chaos but both are saying “I refuse to be who you want me to be.”
      - Silent Protest
        
        Yeong-hye’s refusal to eat meat in The Vegetarian is a form of silent protest. She never gives speeches or arguments she just stops participating in the things she finds harmful.
        
        Her silence makes people uncomfortable because they can’t control her anymore. In a way, she’s resisting not just meat, but the whole system of control that’s been placed on her as a woman.
        
        Why it matters: This shows that protest doesn’t always have to be loud or public sometimes resistance looks like withdrawal or simply saying “no.”
  - - - In the spirit of beginning to make connections between our texts, what do you think Murakami would have to say about the characters we've been meeting in The Vegetarian (Yeong-hye's husband and brother-in-law especially).
      - Has Murakami given us a conceptual framework with which we might think critically about their behavior and their general attitude toward the world?
      - I thought back and tried to put myself into the shoes of In-hye. It is shown that she has mostly conformed to societal norms her hole life but really begins to question them as she watches her sister waste away. Her growing sympathy suggests an understanding that Yeong-hye’s choices are not simply madness anymore, but an act of resistance or an attempt at transcendence. However, she also recognizes the hopelessness of saving her. Yeong-hye is simply too far gone.
- - - - In Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Janina lives alone in a remote Polish village. Most of the town dismisses her as “crazy,” but her solitude allows her to see things others ignore, like patterns in the animal deaths.
        
        Kafka in Kafka on the Shore also chooses solitude by running away. He isolates himself not just physically, but emotionally too, as a way to escape the painful relationships in his life.
        
        Richard in Go, Went, Gone has a more subtle solitude—he’s a retired academic with few real human connections, and it’s only through the refugees that he starts to question his own detachment.
        
        Why it matters: Solitude in these stories isn’t just being alone—it’s about being cut off from society, either by choice or by force, and what that distance reveals about both the self and the world.
    - - The refugees in Go, Went, Gone are physically present in Berlin, but treated like they’re invisible. Richard sees how even the government avoids acknowledging them in public spaces.
        
        In Swing Time, the narrator feels invisible much of the time—she has no name, and even as she travels the world with Aimee, she’s always in the background, never in the spotlight.
        
        Yeong-hye becomes invisible in a different way—once she stops fulfilling the role of daughter or wife, people stop seeing her as a person altogether.
        
        Why it matters: These examples show that being invisible isn’t just about not being seen—it’s about being unacknowledged, especially when your identity doesn’t fit what society values.
    - - Janina in Drive Your Plow... is a great example of how aging can contribute to marginalization. People ignore her opinions, assume she’s confused, and use her age to dismiss her completely—even though she’s often the most perceptive character.
        
        Kafka’s relationship with older characters like Miss Saeki also brings up aging. She’s haunted by her youth and by time passing, and Kafka sees her as stuck between past and present.
        
        Why it matters: Aging in these books isn’t just about getting old—it’s about losing power and visibility, and the way society often silences or dismisses older people, even when they have wisdom to off
    - - Yeong-hye is institutionalized because she stops eating and starts identifying with plants. But the novel makes us question: is she really “mad,” or is she the only one responding truthfully to the cruelty around her?
        
        Janina is treated like she’s mentally unstable because of her beliefs in astrology and animal rights—but her “madness” is a way of seeing beyond social norms.
        
        Kafka is caught in surreal, dream-like experiences that make us question his sanity. The line between real and imagined blurs, but his madness seems connected to trauma, not illness.
        
        Why it matters: Madness in these stories isn’t just about mental health—it’s used to label and discredit people who refuse to follow the rules or make others uncomfortable.
- - - - In Kafka on the Shore, Kafka’s dreams are strange and symbolic. He wakes up from a blackout covered in blood, unsure if he’s fulfilled the Oedipal prophecy. His dreams blur with reality and push the plot forward.
      - In The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye’s decision to stop eating meat is triggered by a disturbing dream. She begins living based on her inner world rather than what people expect from her.
      - In Swing Time, dreams show up more as ambitions. The narrator dreams of belonging or succeeding but constantly compares herself to Tracey and Aimee.
      - Why it matters: Dreams show us how each character's inner world can feel more real or powerful than their actual lives.
    - - Kafka believes he's stuck in a prophecy no matter what he does, which makes him feel powerless. Even when he tries to escape, he ends up following it anyway.
      - Yeong-hye also seems trapped—once she rejects her role in society, everyone treats her like she’s doomed.
      - The Swing Time narrator thinks fate is tied to things like race and class. She watches other people fall or rise based on systems she can’t control.
      - Why it matters: All three books question whether we really choose who we become—or if society, trauma, and expectations decide for us
    - - Kafka on the Shore uses mirrors to show inner conflict. Kafka sees himself in Nakata and Crow, and it’s hard to tell where he ends and others begin.
      - In Swing Time, the narrator and Tracey mirror each other. They come from the same background, but their lives split. Natalie/Keisha also lives a double life that reflects this idea.
      - In The Vegetarian, In-hye (Yeong-hye’s sister) sees parts of herself in Yeong-hye. That makes her uncomfortable, especially as Yeong-hye loses control.
      - Why it matters: Mirrors in these stories show how identity is never just one thing. We’re often reflections of the people around us—or the parts we try to hide.
    - - Kafka is literally split. Crow is like his darker half, and the whole book is about figuring out who he really is.
      - In Swing Time, the narrator is always switching roles—assistant, friend, outsider. She hides parts of herself to fit in.
      - Yeong-hye becomes two different people: the version her family wants and the quiet, plant-like person she chooses to become.
      - Why it matters: Duality helps show how identity is complicated. Each character is dealing with the pressure to act one way while feeling something totally different inside.
- - - - Asylum
        
        Go, Went, Gone: The asylum process is shown in painful detail long waiting periods, confusing interviews, and the constant threat of deportation.
        Connection: The novel critiques the dehumanizing way Europe handles asylum seekers, showing how political systems often deny refuge.
      - Borders
      - Stateleness
        
        Go Went Gone: The African refugees Richard meets (like Rashid and Awad) are stuck in bureaucratic limbo many without passports or country recognition, making them “stateless” in legal terms.
        Connection: Their lack of citizenship reveals how identity is often defined by paperwork, not humanity.
      - Dispora
        
        Swing Time: The narrator and Tracey are part of the Black British diaspora, shaped by colonial history and migration. Their identities are hybrid British, Caribbean, African and constantly shifting.
        Connection: Smith explores the tension between heritage and assimilation, especially through the narrator’s mother’s Pan-African activism.
      - Belonging
        
        Go, Went, Gone: Richard, though native to Germany, begins to feel emotionally disconnected from his old life and increasingly identifies with the refugees' sense of not belonging.
        
        Swing Time: The narrator never fully feels she belongs whether in her childhood neighborhood, her elite work environment, or in Africa.
        
        Connection: Both stories show that belonging is emotional, not just geographic often shaped by race, class, and politics.
      - Mobility
        
        Go, Went, Gone: The refugees’ physical mobility is restricted by state systems. Despite their long journeys, they end up in detention centers or stuck in administrative traps.
        
        Swing Time: The narrator enjoys global mobility thanks to her job and class status, highlighting the inequality in who gets to move freely.
        
        Connection: Both books contrast forced vs. privileged mobility, raising questions about who is allowed to move and who pays the price.