Murakami's Barn Burning

1492 Words6 Pages
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, inner conflict results from the incompatibility between different demands of entities within the human psyche: the Id, which represents instincts and hidden desires, ego, which represents reality, and Superego, which represents morality. Seldom aware of the other, these entities occupy the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious layers of the mind. Consequently, the conscious part of one’s existence clarifies one’s behavior to oneself or others without understanding one’s true motivations (Mcleod). In Haruki Murakami’s short story “Barn Burning” from the collection, The Elephant Vanishes, the interaction between the nameless protagonist, his ex-girlfriend, and her new boyfriend echoes the struggle…show more content…
In addition to the Eros life instinct contextualized by the girl, the Id is comprised of the death instinct, Thanatos, which represents destructive energy, including aggression. This threatening aspect, is deemed unacceptable by the Superego, which “operates on the morality principle and motivates us to behave in a socially… acceptable manner”(Mcleod). The narrator’s sudden interest in the boyfriend can potentially uncover this part of himself. When the boyfriend reveals the secret involving barn burning, it triggers the narrator’s curiosity: “I’d like to hear about this barn thing”(140). This signifies a shift in the narrator’s previous contentment with anonymity that he maintained with his girlfriend. Unconsciously however, at this point, his curiosity is based on an eagerness to portray himself as a moral person and the boyfriend as ambiguously fraudulent: “You burn barns. I don’t burn barns”(140). The image of barn burning triggers the narrator’s anxiety as the act is calamitous and immoral, implying that he is acknowledging the judgmental aspect of the Superego as part of himself. However, by viewing himself as opposite from the boyfriend, the narrator attempts to distance himself from the destructive aspects of his Id while reinforcing his…show more content…
As did the narrator, Japan, as a nation, focused on materialistic prospects to define itself along with denying its scandalous ultra-nationalistic fervor before the war and involvement in war crime atrocities that disrupted the continuity of their nationhood. The false and glorified image of Japan as a prosperous nation emerging from the war as a defense mechanism of denial was a contradiction with reality served to divide the positive conscious part of their psyche from the negative side as personified by the doppelganger. In terms of the Superego aspect of Japan’s identity, their motivation for abnegating their destructive Id was to suspend judgment from the Superego. Murakami’s nostalgic attitude in this text implies loss; however the concept of simultaneity which entails the absence of judgment, becomes a means by which Japan and the world, can “see” both the destructive and life-giving aspects of their past. Rhetorically symbolized with the barn, the burning of Japan and its identity holds both the opportunity for renewal and the admission of loss. A race of deception can be revolutionized instead with an attitude of integration and acceptance--possible only by finding a balance in an individual or nation’s own psyche, devoid of
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