Abstract
It is a challenge to speak on T.S. Eliot and the discourse on modernism, especially after almost a century. However, it appears that the whirlpool created by modernists still produce distant waves in the literary imagination of the present times. It often seems to appear that the fear of decadence has been internalized and accepted within the popular imagination of the present times. However, such a process is complicated, especially if one considers that modernist literature essentially attempted to bypass the conventions and limitations of popular perspectives. It tried to construct a new ‘language’ that can be used as a point of reference to fathom the strange and ever-changing society of the times.
This paper looks back and aims to explore if modernist perspectives are still relevant in representing the concerns of the contemporary human condition. For the purpose of this paper, the modernist representation of romantic love will be studied with reference to select poems by T. S. Eliot. Also, contemporary author Haruki Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore will be analysed to understand which of the modernist perspectives on love get manifested in contemporary literature. The paper will, therefore, also attempt to comprehend in what ways does Murakami’s narrative differs from Eliot’s poems while exploring the topic of romantic love. Analysing select texts to comment upon an entire age is difficult and may even prove to be erroneous, but I believe such is the method to arrive at a hypothesis on the relevance of modernism in the present times.
Keywords: modernism, personal, collective, love, humour, alienation, reconciliation.
Love is a topic that has been revisited time and again throughout the evolution of human culture. Modernists in their single-minded pursuit of establishing a new ‘language’[1] that can adequately define their times and society tried to reinvent and often problematize the conventionally accepted ideas on love and relationships. This quest has not been straightforward, and instead, modernist literature tends to exhibit a dialectical relationship with convention and new forms of socio-cultural expressions and practices. For instance, Stephen Dedalus contemplates whether his refusal to pray for his mother’s soul has jeopardised the chances of her liberation. He expresses a hint of guilt as he contemplates –
Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. (Joyce 4)
Apparently, love towards the mother is not unconditional anymore in the modernist literary imagination – it emanates out of a struggle within the individual. Also, love as a theme seems to be somewhat dormant in modernist literature, always lurking in the shadows, beyond the scope of the artist. Nevertheless, the scope of a topic such as ‘love’ can be immense, and it can speak of every possible human relationship. But for the sake of this paper, the scope of love is limited to the analysis of romantic love in modernist literature, and to hypothesize if such an analysis can define the contemporary literary perception of love. In other words, the paper chooses the ‘language of love’ and its resultant evolution to comprehend if modernist perspectives are still relevant, or if the thinking society has out-grown literary modernism in this past century.
Why Eliot and Murakami?
The paper investigates select poems by T. S. Eliot, namely, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1914) and “The Waste Land” (1922) to understand the perception of love in high modernism. Then it compares that understanding to test if Eliot’s vision stands relevant in Haruki Murakami’s novel Kafka on the Shore (2005). I believe such a comparison is of the utmost importance especially for a literary researcher working in the early 21st century because he/she is in the age of transition. There is a debate raging across the academia on whether postmodernism has replaced modernism, or if is it a continuation of modernism – names such as Patricia Waugh, Brian McHale and Francis Fukuyama come to mind. Also, there are thinkers like Linda Hutcheon and Josh Toth, who tend to propose that even postmodernism is a thing of the past, and instead, we are witnessing something beyond the postmodern.
My point is, we are yet to determine our position in relation to our immediate socio-cultural history. Hence, perhaps the best way to understand its impact is to study how the present revisits the same. This approach was perhaps termed as ‘making it new’ by Ezra Pound. So, utilising the past to determine the present is what modernism did, and perhaps such a method is best to understand the relevance of modernism in contemporary times.
However, a question arises why this research paper is placing Eliot and Murakami together to study the above phenomenon. Apparently, Eliot is the self-proclaimed “classicist” (Cooper 111) and Murakami is perhaps the most celebrated writer of ‘popular’ fiction in the present times. His works have often been accused to be not being essentially Japanese enough. His works allegedly employ Japan as a prop and replacing it would not change the narrative in any way. So, the modernists resisted the invasion of American popular culture through their works, and this research paper pits some of the most quintessential modernist works alongside Murakami. This selection of primary materials can be justified through a closer look.
Literary modernism took inspiration from cultures beyond Europe. For instance, Buddhist rituals and beliefs, ideas from the Upanishads, Japanese poetic forms like the haiku, images from oriental mythologies frequent modernist texts. Thus, even if it is sceptical of popular culture, there is a ceaseless attempt to construct a universal culture – something that transcends European culture and society. Murakami’s texts too attempt to put forward this vision. His works often refer to jazz, European musicians and musical pieces, Shintoism, philosophers like Hegel and Henri Bergson, the cult of “Hare Krishna” (Murakami 167) and even T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (Murakami 167). In other words, it appears to me that what the modernists tried to do, finds a strange resonance in Murakami’s works like Kafka on the Shore. Such similarities invoke the pertinent question – has the experimental ways of literary modernism been appropriated into the popular culture of contemporary times? This research paper will attempt to address this concern in the upcoming sections.
Nonetheless, the anchor in charge of steadying this research paper is the ‘language of love’. I believe exploring how Eliot’s select poems and Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore deal with the said topic may help to theorise the connection, or a lack thereof, between modernism and contemporary literature. I am purposefully choosing not to mention Haruki Murakami as a postmodernist writer, even though his works are often categorised under that category. This is because the objective of this paper is to understand the contemporary relevance of modernist literature and not to determine if the present literature can be called postmodern. So, for the sake of this enquiry, let us just state that Haruki Murakami is a writer who exhibits postmodern tendencies.
The select poems by Eliot for the purpose of this paper express a specific vision of human relationships during the early 20th century. The conflict between individual desires and societal expectations, receding spirituality and lust remain the points of discussion in these texts. Murakami’s narrative, however, put forward similar concerns, but the tone and treatment of these themes seem to differ significantly. It seems as if there is a shift from melancholia to humour. So, the question arises whether modernist treatment of the theme of love is still relevant in explaining contemporary society. However, establishing a method to situate this research argument is of paramount importance, or else these texts cannot be tied with a unified thread of argument.
Eliot’s poems will perhaps put forward the ‘modernities’ associated with human relationships, in this case, the theme of love. It will be tested whether these themes are present in Murakami’s narrative. If these are indeed present, then it will be explored how the treatment of these themes vary or converge in these texts. I believe such an approach will lead to a holistic understanding of the evolution of modernism, and its present status. Hence, identifying specific modernities relevant to Eliot and tracing their evolution in Murakami via a close reading of the texts become pertinent in this study.
The Modernist Vision of Love in Existing Discourses
The modernist account of love is problematic and perhaps incomplete. Stephen S. Dowden writes that modernist literature, especially the ones during the post-war years showcase an inability to mourn the losses inflicted upon civilisation. He mentions – “that the inability to mourn belongs together with an inability to love” (55). Modernist literature appears to be too repressed to even recognize the grief it has hidden somewhere deep underneath its psyche. Perhaps the most common example which one may think of is Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Fly”. The readers encounter the smug Boss, who undergoes an emotional breakdown towards the end of the story as his repressed memories of his dead son comes back to haunt him.
Dowden further goes on to deduce the modernist artistic vision from his reading of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus – “The artist must renounce love because it warms. The artist must remain cold” (56). Such a treatment of this theme instantly reminds the readers of T. S. Eliot’s take on the nature of art and the role of the artist. His era-defining essay, “Tradition and Individual Talent” stresses – “For it is not the "greatness," the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process” (North 118). The goal of the artist is, therefore, to negate his personality from the work he sets out to construct (North 117).
The complicacy of modernist art, thus, stems from these regulations in part of its practitioners. The works tend to showcase repression of personality (or in this case grief as the paper talks about love) perhaps due to the concern to perfect the form and not the individual feeling, which acts as a catalyst to construct that form. Modernist literature, therefore, often appears to be nostalgic of something that is lost – a time, a culture, or perhaps a way of life. It incessantly tries to create new ‘languages’ which can dictate man to forge new rules that would enable him to make sense of his strange, yet ailing society. But being nostalgic of an imagined loss and grieving for what is essentially lost are perhaps not the same thing – the former is the shadow, the latter being the object.
Modernism, if it can be interpreted as the assemblage of ideas originating from modernist writings and musings, then can be said to showcase a struggle in making it known the position of the individual as he encounters his society. In other words, modernism seems to be too focused on effectively capturing the alienation resulting due to the clash between the individual’s take on reality and the symbolic reality of society.[2] However, in so doing, it seems to forget to focus on the individual psyche that reacts to such a challenge.
Naturally, questions arise – if this modernist understanding of man and his society is still adequate in capturing the essence of contemporary times? Also, it should be asked, if the inter-personal themes identified by modernist artists are pertinent in understanding human relationships in the early 21st century? The following sections of the research paper, therefore, tries to identify expressions of modernity pertaining to the ‘language of love’ and if these expressions have undergone any change in nature or artistic treatment.
“Pinned and Wriggling on the Wall”: Individual Reality and Societal Expectations
Eliot’s Prufrock is defined by his hesitation and struggle to express what he desires to convey. He is too conscious of his appearance – his physical ‘flaws’ haunt him throughout his soliloquy (Collected Poems 1909-1962 4). The moment he tries to gather courage, perhaps to express his love towards the person of his fancy, he is reminded how he does not quite align with the societal standards of masculinity. Even when he stands inside the room “where women come and go talking of Michelangelo” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 3), perhaps in the company of the beloved, yet he wonders about the city, its squalor and the yellow fog. This collage of images is perhaps not important in themselves, but they become relevant due to his ceaseless attempt to escape the gaze of the other sex.
His language is fragmented, perhaps not by choice, but due to this tussle between societal expectations and clichés about love, and what he really has got to offer. Prufrock exhibits a sensitive and imaginative soul. His language combines erudition, fear and helplessness – he stands for an individual who finds himself powerless despite being knowledgeable compared to many. He does not for a moment consider that the beloved might be fascinated with him if he only reveals his thinking ‘self’ before her. Perhaps, he is also afraid of another consequence. Maybe he considers that it is best to not reveal his true sentiments to the beloved because she too is shallow like the larger society of his times. She will fail to see any value in his words and would perhaps retort with contempt how he had misinterpreted her behaviour towards him – “that is not what I meant at all” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 6).
His society has undergone changes and men have perhaps lost their confidence to declare like Shakespeare’s speaker from “sonnet 130” how the woman is flawed, but despite her flaws, it is his love towards her, which adds meaning to their existence. The speaker can expose how false comparison creates unrealistic images of love, thereby doing a disservice to society – “My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: / And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare” (Shakespeare: Complete Works 1124). Prufrock recognizes the ‘flaws’ within the woman similar to Shakespeare’s speaker. He observes – “Arms that are braceleted and white and bare / (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 5). However, perhaps he understands that societal expectations and reality are different. Hence, his feelings towards the person despite the apparent ‘flaws’ do not matter to him. Even then, he is “afraid” to confess. He confesses his lack of courage. He mentions that he is not “prince Hamlet.” He lacks the will to act eventually. Even Prufrock’s confession to the reader comes under a particular scenario – the poem begins with a reference to Guido da Montefeltro from Dante’s Inferno and constructs this impenetrable image of hell, where the reader and Prufrock are trapped. Prufrock is only confessing to the reader because he believes the reader like him can never return to life.
Love as a sentiment does not lead to emancipation, nor does it lead to human connection within the modern ‘inferno’, that is civilised society. It appears to be marred by artifices conferred through societal expectations. Eliot’s poem laments this loss as he recollects a bygone era. There is almost a clash between the romantic self and the realist self within Prufrock. The former expects redeeming properties from his love, however, the realist self understands that in these times, love cannot resurrect alienated souls. Hence, Prufrock is sceptical of emotional resurrections. He begins to convey in a prophet like manner, about to share a glimpse of divine knowledge – “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, / Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 6). But he does not quite complete his sentence. The wisdom does not quite find its way on the page, because perhaps there is no wisdom to share at all. When it is the society that alienates him, how can a societal understanding of love resurrect him? He too understands this and thus reveals that “I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 6).
Love has been the chosen topic for a significant body of artistic works in the past. The likes of Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare have dedicated entire volumes to that eternal theme. But it seems to Prufrock that Shakespeare’s promise of celebration of love and the beloved’s beauty “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see” (Shakespeare: Complete Works 1108) has become hollow. Societal expectations do not allow people to see the person they may love, instead, they love an idea imposed by society, and they try to find a person who embodies these ideas. Like Marvell’s speaker in “To His Coy Mistress”, Prufrock too fears the “winged chariot” of time, but he cannot find love that can make his life meaningful, yet that does not deter death from approaching. Prufrock expresses his fear – “I grow old … I grow old …” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 7). He goes on to invert the promise of companionship which may defeat time as had been depicted by Marvell. He reveals that loneliness and failure of communication are the realities of modern man. His inability to understand the meaning of the mermaids’ song is poignant. He does not just stop at this inability to fathom meaning, he even expresses his fear that “I do not think they will sing to me” (Collected Poems 1909-1962 7). The rejection to communicate is intentional, it is the predicament of modern man. “Prufrock”, therefore, puts forward this idea that the language of love is filled with clichés and redundant expressions, which amount to absolutely nothing in the modern society.
“So Rudely Forced”: Love as a Hollow Ritual
Eliot proceeds to capture the hollow rituals of love-making in a society bereft of spiritual and emotional communication in his poem The Waste Land. This section explores the experience of love stripped of human communication, social pretensions, only comprehended as an expression of libido. Thus, The Waste Land perhaps attempts to capture life in modern urban societies, where progress amounts to certain parameters like material gain, technological development and luxury. Such a perspective leads to the following pertinent questions – what happens to human relationships? Or, more precisely, what change does the ‘language of love’ undergo in such a setting?
Human relationships also seem to operate through this materialistic guideline – exchange of desires and bodily fluids. Eliot’s poem laments the apparent lack of human connection and spiritual fulfilment from relationships. For this study, the sections like “A Game of Chess” and “The Fire Sermon” become more relevant among the other sections of the poem. In “A Game of Chess”, Eliot presents images from the lives of two married couples, the first belongs to the upper class, while the second couple belongs to the lower class. Perhaps the poet wishes to explore if the language of love is truly affected by material needs. His analysis seems to suggest that human connection needs a language that transcends money.
The interaction, or lack thereof, between the couple belonging to the upper class, is symbolised through the image of Philomela’s song when she was transformed into a nightingale. The lack of communication between the couple is such that one cannot hear what the other wishes to convey. This absence of a common language is heightened through Eliot’s repeated use of the word “nothing” (North 57) soon thereafter. Even though the wife is supposedly having a nervous breakdown, the husband seems to be a silent observer. Only once does the husband appear to comment something – he invokes Ariel’s song from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The song hinting at a possibility of resurrection seems to have been reduced to nothing but a popular utterance in the modern times. Just like the dead landscape, human relationships too are dead.
In the case of the married couple belonging to a lower social stratum, the disconnect is more apparent. Eliot’s treatment of this couple reflects that with the absence of spirituality in love, only physicality dictates a relationship. As soon as the physicality subsides, the relationship threatens to crumble down. The money given to the wife to avail the services of the dentist has been used by her to take abortion pills. The readers learn that she is a mother of five at thirty-one, and almost had a close encounter with death during the last delivery. It becomes apparent that survival is shamed while the outward appearance is desired in modern society, that is the ‘waste land’. The ‘death of god’ has not just obliterated all moral codes, but it has exposed the position of women in modern society. They are preferred as breeding bags much more than a companion. The words uttered by the friend seems to reveal this irony of marriage – “What you get married for if you don't want children?” (North 59). The closing lines of this section reiterate Ophelia’s final words. The way Hamlet failed to communicate his true motives to Ophelia, thereby, leading her to death perhaps echoes the state of relationships in Eliot’s imagined society.
The next section that depicts the relationship between the sexes is “The Fire Sermon”. If the previous section explored marriage and its pretensions, then this section explores couples outside marriage. Eliot’s poem begins with a reference to a lovers’ lane of the times, which is but empty. The river is no longer in its pure state as can be seen in pastorals and romances. Instead, it harbours the memory of casual relationships – “testimony of summer nights” (North 60). The lovers will perhaps never meet again, people are slaves of their bodily desires. Hence, Eliot invokes Tiresias’s lamentation reminding the readers of how the Israelites were held in captivity. Also, the speaker is immediately reminded of Marvell’s urgency to consummate a relationship not just physically, but spiritually. Eliot’s speaker seems to suggest that the latter is absent from the contemporary language of love.
Eliot’s poem goes on to present a snapshot of images to construct the collage of his “unreal city” (North 61). He talks of loveless sexual encounters through Sweeney and the homosexual merchant Eugenides. Neither an encounter with a prostitute shall lead to a progeny ensuring happiness, nor will a homosexual encounter lead to birth. This image of the sterility of human relationships seems to haunt Eliot’s poetic landscape. Mrs. Porter’s ritual of using soda water to wash her feet inverts the traditional grail imagery. The way of god seems to have been replaced by a mindless carnal desire. However, it is the encounter between the typist and the clerk which comes close to best capturing the fate of Philomela when she is ravaged by King Tereus. However, the reality of modern existence, as Eliot’s poem seems to propose is solitude – sexual encounters between partners do not seem to make one transcend life as the metaphysical poets envisioned. Instead, it has become another part of monotonous existence. Solitude appears to keep the modern man at ease.
“The Fire Sermon” goes on to speak about fragmented images unified through the theme of stale relationships – Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, the nameless woman from Highbury and her guilty lover, and finally Margate sands. In the first case, the concern for the stability of the state does not allow two lovers to unite. In the second one, the man is haunted by his morality for a sexual encounter outside marriage, while the woman wonders what morality has got to do with sex. The third instance is important – it is a reference taken from Eliot’s life. Margate sands is the place where the poet took shelter to recuperate from a nervous breakdown and composed the third section of The Waste Land. He too had a troubled marital relationship. His wife allegedly had an affair with his Professor Bertrand Russell, within a year after the marriage (Cooper 5), perhaps exposing to the poet the possible theme of a loveless marriage.
Nevertheless, Eliot’s poem seems to give this impression that the modern society is perhaps not the ideal place where the language of love shared can enable communication. Modern man seems to remain trapped in the realm of isolation and unfulfilled expectations. Love is not guided by the old promises of earthly transcendence or unification with the ideal. Instead, it is more naturalistic – a means to satisfy the body, a false narrative to conform to societal prescriptions.
“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about”: From Melancholy to Humour
Murakami’s narrative also seems to explore the ‘surreal city’ of the 21st century. It is inhabited by people, still searching for human connection. However, it seems that the absence of spirituality from love and love-making is no longer a topic worth representing. Instead, it has become quite commonplace, and therefore, quite formulaic. Murakami’s narrative, thus, seems to celebrate the humour in such encounters. Just like Sweeney and Mrs. Porter, the readers meet another pair in the form of Hoshino and the nameless student, pursuing a Philosophy major and working as a part-time prostitute.
If for Eliot, the pursuit for the ‘holy grail’ has been replaced by a quest for lust, then for Murakami, the pursuit for the ‘entrance stone’[3] begins with the fulfilment of carnal desires. The woman is advertised before her arrival, almost as a commodity, or more precisely, a racing car – “she's four-wheel drive in bed, turbocharged desire, step on the gas, the surging gearshift in her hands, you round the corner, she shifts gears ecstatically, you race out in the passing lane, and bang! You're there - Hoshino's dead and gone to heaven” (Murakami 252). This comparison is intriguing because this is very much in tune with what the metaphysical poets strive to convey, that is, the act of sex is capable of transcending the soul of the participants. However, the tonal difference between metaphysical poetry and Murakami’s narrative seems to be remarkable. Seriousness seems to have been replaced by fancy and colloquial expressions.
Hoshino’s encounter with the woman makes him confess – “Man alive, that was fantastic. I've never felt like that” (Murakami 253). If compared to Eliot, in Murakami’s narrative, the focus seems to have shifted from conscience to pleasure. Throughout the act, the woman quotes the likes of Henri Bergson and Hegel stating how it is the present that matters, everything else is but memory (Murakami 252). The narrative seems to emphasize the reality of the times – philosophy may question knowledge and enrich it in the process, but the act of studying requires money. If Eliot’s poem regrets the absence of communication in the language of love, Murakami’s narrative seems to highlight how love too can stem from the economic base.[4]
However, Murakami’s language of love seems to be a discourse. It has more than one perspective. Hoshino has no regret about this encounter, but throughout the course of the narrative, he seems to arrive at a realization. He questions his escapist nature and wonders about all the relationships from which he had turned away. He realizes that his life has been pointless (Murakami 398). The narrative at this point seems to suggest that one’s profession and individual existence do not guarantee a meaningful existence, instead, it is a meaningful relationship that defines life. Hoshino wonders that perhaps a time will come when he will have to “pay up” for wasted opportunities and time. Perhaps, this is Murakami’s version of Marvell’s epiphanic line, which Eliot also happens to use in The Waste Land – “at my back I alwaies hear” (1). However, Murakami’s narrative does not allow Hoshino to traverse the path offered in Eliot’s poem. He is more pragmatic, and he considers – “It's okay, Hoshino, don't worry about it. That's life” (Murakami 399).
“She looks like a symbol of something”: An Ideal Language
If language is understood to be something that encapsulates the consciousness of the times, then modernist language represents a loss, perhaps a disconnect of the individual from the societal conventions and expectations. In Eliot’s vision, such an outcome renders modern man to be driven by lust and regret – almost a life without emotional fulfilment. Murakami, on the other hand, recognizes the language of love as dreamlike. In his imagination, it is like a reverie which the person speaking it can comprehend, the others cannot. In other words, there cannot be a universal language of love that everyone can identify, but every person creates his own.
Murakami’s young adult protagonist encounters the spirit of a 15-year-old Miss Saeki. His feelings towards this figure are reminiscent of the English sonneteers – teary-eyed, worshipping the ideal beauty but also aware that the union cannot ever materialise. However, he undergoes a sexual encounter with the 50-year-old Miss Saeki when the latter was sleepwalking. Murakami’s narrative seems to question the morality associated with such an act. Kafka feels that it is not just a momentary event, instead, his encounter with the 15-year-old spirit of Miss Saeki actually enables him to understand and even desire the grown-up Miss Saeki. He declares –
It's not that simple. We're not talking about that sort of time here. I know you when you were fifteen. And I'm in love with you at that age. Very much in love. And through her, I'm in love with you. That young girl's still inside you, asleep inside you. Once you go to sleep, though, she comes to life. I've seen it. (Murakami 272)
If Eliot’s poems appear to present images from the early 20th century lives, Murakami’s narrative appears to resist such overarching representation. It is rather more inclined towards exploring an individual reality that may differ from other realities. There is a movement away from the macrocosm to the microcosm. Kafka Tamura’s complicated relationship with his imagined mother and the “living spirit” (Murakami 207) of the same person perhaps transcends conventional morality. Yet what Eliot’s characters find lacking is realized in Murakami – the spiritual aspect of love and human connection. Kafka too comprehends the utter meaninglessness of existence without such attributes, yet his perceived language of love is personal, and it successfully manages to add meaning to his life. The melancholia of Eliot makes way for hope. Murakami seems to remind his readers of E. M. Forster’s iconic phrase “only connect” (198) from Howards End.
Summing Up
The representation of ‘modernities’ in the domain of human relationships, or more precisely romantic entanglements, identified by T. S. Eliot in his select poems appear to be still present in contemporary literature. Issues like lust, loveless marriage, attraction, search for spirituality through love, societal expectations guiding one’s expectations, etc. seem to remain relevant even today. However, contemporary authors like Murakami appears to divulge a different tone when dealing with these topics. Guilt and regret have made way for an acceptance of alienation, and sometimes personal hope of reconciliation with society.
The reconciliation does not mean acceptance of societal perspectives by suppressing individuality, but on the contrary, a co-existence of the two is proposed in contemporary works like Kafka on the Shore. Modernism is still relevant in understanding the present society, but perhaps it needs to expand its horizons to accommodate fresh perspectives. Human connection is still the desired objective of the ‘language of love’ but it does not appear to seek universality, instead, it is content to continue its search in pockets of individuality.
Endnotes:
[1] Language is not just a mimetic device. Instead, it is a sign that is charged with cultural images (Leitch 5). It has got nothing to do with reality, instead it captures what the speaker understands to be real. Therefore, in this paper when I speak of ‘language of love’, I am not referring to any hidden reality of love, but my concern is to study the relevance and treatment of the said theme in the works of Eliot and Murakami.
[2] This understanding of alienation as the result of contradiction between individual reality (imagined reality, or 'ideal' I) and societal reality (symbolic reality) (79) is borrowed from Jacques Lacan’s hypothesis of the mirror stage.
[3] Murakami’s tale is a magic realist narrative. The entrance stone is said to possess special powers, for it can open and close the gateway to an alternate realm. To my understanding, it is like the holy grail in this narrative – a device that can connect earthly existence with something beyond it.
[4] Marx argues that it is the economic base which regulates the superstructure – the latter being the socio-cultural domain. Love, therefore, seems to belong to the superstructure in Murakami’s imagined society.
Works Cited
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Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits. Translated by Bruce Fink, W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.
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Marvell, Andrew. To His Coy Mistress. Orion Books, 1996.
Murakami, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore. Translated by Philip Gabriel. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
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