Seeing the World Through Others’ Eyes - Sarah

One thing we know for sure is that Murakami was directly influenced by Raymond Carver’s minimalist style, which he even translated Carver’s works into Japanese. Thus, while reading “Barn Burning,” “The Second Bakery Attack,” and “Cathedral,” I noticed a shared, implicit message: the unreliability of the narrator and how each story gradually opens the narrator’s eyes through the intrusion of another’s worldview. In a more magical sense, this can be seen as an incarnation of another character’s consciousness, which could be interpreted as a sign of Murakami’s use of magical realism.

“Barn Burning” closely resembles Murakami’s “A Wild Sheep Chase,” as both protagonists encounter someone who draws them into an absurd and nonsensical journey. The narrator of “Barn Burning” starts to construct an elaborate mental map to find the next barn to burn, ultimately developing a strange compulsion to commit the act himself.

In “The Second Bakery Attack,” the couple experiences tension and is cursed by compromises, with the husband passively coerced into most decisions. Their late-night robbery of a burger place becomes a bizarre yet transformative experience that helps them to break their “curse” and deepens their emotional connection. The man recalls his earlier bakery robbery, where he and his partner claimed that they enjoyed listening to Wagner’s music, and ended up being “ filled up with bread while being filled up with Wagner.” These two shabby men started to get a taste of this elegant music with the complex textures and rich harmonies of the orchestra. 

Finally, in Carver’s “Cathedral,” the narrator’s initial condescending attitude toward “the blind man” evolves into understanding when he allows the blind man to guide his hand in drawing a cathedral. With his eyes closed, he begins to see the world through another’s perspective which he experiences a profound moment of empathy.

All of these “wearing another’s shoes” moments reveal a shared postmodernism entrenched in magical realism, the temporary vanish of one’s own consciousness, and the awakening with seeing through someone else’s lens. This further proves the intertextuality of all postmodern works, in which authors share similarities and stay connected through adopting similar literary techniques.