Surrealism
Surrealism is a common theme in most of Murakami’s stories. Surrealism is described as art that expresses unconscious. Surrealism is different from supernatural in the way that the latter insists on entities external of human mind, while surrealism explains those same entities as a manifestation of an unconscious mind. Murakami’s stories often has this motif, particularly in stories like ‘Sleep’, which follow rational events but are triggered by the appearance of an old man in the narrator’s dream that starts her insomnia.
Existentialism
Existentialism is another theme in the stories. Murakami’s protagonists are always aware of their lives, they do not define a list of purposes or desires they must fulfill, but they are always aware of how mundane their lives are. In fact, getting aware of the meaningless of their lives becomes a point at which the character arc begins to develop. Particularly, in stories like ‘Sleep’ or ‘The Silence’, the narrators realizes the futility of their lives and undergo major changes in terms of their emotions.
Human Connection
All stories stress on the need of a human connection, in one form or another. Many stories have situations when the protagonists meet random people and end up sharing a powerful connection with them. In stories like, ‘A Slow Boat to China’, ‘Barn Burning’, the protagonists meet people he doesn’t know very well but is affected by them in more than one ways.
Resistance Against Change
Murakami’s characters are unsettled by changes. They may not be expressive about it, but they end up internalizing this resistance in their lives. In ‘A Family Affair’, the siblings find it difficult to think of their lives after the marriage of the sister. They don’t talk about it, but become irritable, and constantly have arguments with each other. In other stories, as The Last Lawn of Summer, the narrator, even though he confesses lack of feelings for his girlfriend, realizes that he has been deeply affected by her breaking off of their relationship.
Paranormal
Murakami doesn’t use any ghosts or spirits to make his stories paranormal, he relies on subconscious. His ghosts come from the subconscious of his characters and haunt them. In stories like, ‘The Dancing Dwarf’ and ‘TV People’, the characters are haunted by people which only they can see, and yet everybody knows about them.
