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Paper short abstract

This study discusses repressed homosexuality in Haruki Murakami’s oeuvre by highlighting the influence from Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, arguing that the triangular relationship in Williams's work is diachronically adapted into the basis of Murakami’s depictions of sexual minorities.

Paper long abstract

This study examines the representation of homosexuality in Haruki Murakami’s literature by analyzing the reception of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. While referencing prior research on Williams and homosociality in Murakami’s work, this paper employs René Girard’s theory of “triangular desire” and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “homosocial-homosexual continuum” to conduct a close reading of Hear the Wind Sing, Norwegian Wood, and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

The analysis yields three primary arguments. First, in Hear the Wind Sing, a triangular relationship is identified between The Rat, The girl without a little finger, and the narrator (“I”), arguing that the bond between The Rat and “I” transcends friendship. Second, in Norwegian Wood, the study asserts the existence of homosexual affection between Kizuki and Toru Watanabe. Consequently, the sexual relationship between Naoko and Toru Watanabe is interpreted as a mutual utilization to bridge the gap to their common object of affection, Kizuki. Third, the paper interprets Tsukuru Tazaki’s homophobic thoughts as a reaction that arose to conceal his latent homosexual affection for Fumiaki Haida in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. By identifying the archetype of the frameworks in these three works within Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it can be deduced that the latter functions as a significant influence in shaping Murakami’s depiction of homosexual relationship and its intersection with heterosexual discourses.

Significant criticism in existing scholarship argues that Murakami’s narratives exhibit homophobia or objectify women. This study, however, offers a counter-narrative by considering the possibility that the protagonists themselves are homosexual or bisexual. From this unexamined perspective, the representations are reinterpreted not as the results of an authorial bias rooted in homophobia, but as depictions of the characters’ repressed homosexuality. Through this approach, the research aims to clarify the intricate existence of sexual minorities in Murakami’s literature.