Literature of Global Experience
by Cara Dudenhoefer
1. Swing Time
2. The Vegetarian
3. Go, Went, Gone
4. Protection Mechanisms
5. Yeong-hye’s ‘metamorphosizing’ into a tree is a way of protecting herself
6. If Kafka builds a wall round himself to keep others out, Yeong-hye builds a shelter around herself that she can let people into as she sees fit, like her sister
7. Anger
8. Richard feels anger on the behalf of the refugees
9. The public opinion of the refugees is weakened when they express their anger, as they’re seen as violent, over-emotional, etc.
10. Helplessness
11. Helplessness
12. The refugees feel incredibly helpless, as all of their protests make little to no impact, but they still hold onto hope that they’ll be able to make a change
13. Egg vs. Wall Metaphor
14. The refugees are the egg, while the government and lawmakers are the wall
15. Egg vs. Wall Metaphor
16. Egg vs. Wall Metaphor
17. The narrator often feels helpless, and she is for a long time
18. The narrator is originally very invested in helping Aimee, but once she realizes that Aimee isn’t a great person, she feels like all of her work has been for nothing
19. Yeong-hye is the egg while her family and their expectations for her are the wall
20. She feels retroactively helpless for not realizing Tracey’s father was abusing her and not doing anything when it was occurring.
21. The biggest action she takes to not feel helpless is, after parting ways with Aimee, publicly exposing her for buying the child she ‘adopted’
22. “It takes him until it is time to turn on the desk lamp again to understand that all this law regulates is jurisdiction. It doesn’t concern itself with the question of whether or not these men are victims of war.” (Erpenbeck, 66).
23. The people in the village in Gambia are the egg, while Aimee is the wall, despite the fact she thinks she is being an immense help.
24. While not referring to Aimee’s school, this quote still applies: “for myself, I don’t care if there are singers or dresses or platters of food— none of it matters to me. But my grandmothers! Oh, she has started a war in this place!” (Smith, 412)
25. In-hye was the only one who allowed Yeong-hye to free herself of these expectations, instead she takes them on herself: “Their parents, whom the whole sorry saga seemed to have greatly aged didn’t make any further effort to visit Yeong-hye, and even severed contact with their elder daughter, In-hye, who reminded them of their animal of a son-in-law. The two sisters’ younger brother, Yeong-ho and his wife were no different. But she, In-hye, could not bring herself to abandon Yeomg-hye. Someone had to pay the hospital fees, someone had to act as her carer. And she got by, as she always had done.” (Kang, 142).
26. In trying to avoid the prophecy that he will sleep with his mother and kill his father, Kafka fulfills it
27. Kafka On The Shore
28. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead
29. Fate vs. Free Will
30. Fate vs. Free Will
31. Janina’s belief in astrology
32. The idea of the ‘natural order’
33. Protection Mechanisms
34. Kafka builds a wall around himself, slowly letting it down and allowing others in, such as Oshima
35. Anger
36. Kafka is driven to leave his home by his anger towards his parents
37. Anger towards his mother for abandoning him
38. Anger towards his father for being incredibly distant, and a bad father when he isn’t being distant
39. Nakata’s anger towards Johnnie Walker for torturing the cats
40. He blacks out in anger and when he believes he’s killing Johnnie Walker, he actually kills Kafka’s father
41. Anger
42. The idea of ‘divine anger’
43. Is Janina’s anger justified?
44. Helplessness
45. The animals themselves are helpless, but Janina steps in and protects them herself
46. Egg vs. Wall Metaphor
47. This idea comes from Murakami, who states that he will always side with the egg— or the oppressed— rather than the wall— the oppressor.
48. Egg vs. Wall Metaphor
49. Nature and the animals are the egg, while the wall is the hunters and those who take advantage of nature
50. Connection between Nakata and Kafka through their anger— Nakata does what Kafka wanted to do, but wouldn’t because of the prophecy, in killing Kafka’s father
51. Shes angry on the behalf of those who can’t protect themselves and takes things into her own hands
52. He doesn’t do these things directly— Miss Saeki is a stand in for his mother, and Nakata kills Kafka’s father.
53. Is originally a Polish concept, and is the idea of a justified anger
54. “These grotesque figures had four legs and a cabin with embrasures on top. Pulpits, for hunting. This name has always amazed and angered me. For what on earth was taught from that sort of pulpit? What sort of gospel was preached? Isn’t it the height of arrogance, isn’t it a diabolical idea to call a place from which one kills a pulpit?” (Tokarczuk, 54)
55. What in the text was “fated” and what was a result of free will? Janina believes that her killing the men who were killing animals was fate, but that was an objective choice she made.
56. “I guess he wanted me to know I was one of the works he’d created. Something he’d finished and signed.” (Murakami, 203).
57. Richard himself didn’t even notice the protests when he walked by them, only when he returned home and saw them on TV.
