The Elephant Vanishes Haruki Murakami Analysis

The Elephant Vanishes Haruki Murakami Analysis One of the major themes in this story is the idea of things being out of balance. This theme is established when the narrator tells the editor about the importance of unison in kitchen design, as he explains that, Even the most beautifully designed item dies if it is out of balance with its surroundings. The narrator goes on to put emphasis on balance between the environment and the creature that calls it home when he talks about witnessing the change in size of the elephant compared to its keeper. He explains that their size became equal, whether it was the keeper who grew or the elephant that shrank, or perhaps a bit of both. The narrator once again puts across the idea that things around me have lost their proper balance after the disappearance of the two. He is no longer able to take action on his own behalf, as he is haunted by a sense that the urban world is out of balance, and he feels that a kind of natural balance has broken down inside him. Linked to the theme of imbalance is the comparison between reality and appearances. The reporter that is covering the strange occurrence tries very hard to maintain the false impression that the elephant simply escaped, when the facts surrounding the whole thing points to none other than a supernatural vanishing. The narrator points out that this is indeed strange and continues to observe that all of the townspeople try to hide behind a similar guise of normality. This inconsistency between appearances and reality comes up again in the narrators job. He goes about his day as usual and maintains a no-nonsense professional approach even though he himself does not agree that a kitchen must have unity, or any of the other principles his company cites in order to sell the products. The narrator discovers that he cannot decide on the differences between reality and appearance, and while he questions his own perception, he suffers, once again, a sense of disorientation and confusion. Another concern of the story is how modern development has displaced the older, more traditional ways of life. The setting is a prosperous Tokyo suburb in the 1980s, when an economic boom was occurring in Japan. The construction of high-rise condominiums sets the events of the story in motion. These condos replace the old zoo, forcing the elephant to be relocating to a new elephant house. Thus, the keeper and his elephant become a symbol of former ways of life and sensitive relationships, which are being pushed aside by accommodation endeavors. Murakami lightly mocks the absurdity of modern life throughout the story, particularly when the narrator describes the towns reaction to the elephants disappearance. The reactions of various townspeople such as the mayor, a worried-looking mother, the police, Self-Defense Force troops, an anchor, and the reporter show how useless and illogical conventional urban responses can be. As the narrator puts it, the newspaper articles were all either pointless or off the mark. Police response is ridiculous and futile. In all, the absurd public response to the bizarre situation of a misplaced elephant shows, in almost a comic way, how urban mindset fails to imagine, much less comprehend, the implausible or intuitive. Throughout this story, the author reveals subtly that the removal of the old ways of life leaves the people feeling mixed-up. Murakami also puts emphasis on how the new ways create detachment and discomfort. For example, the narrator goes about his job as a public relations executive by abiding to the motto that things you cant sell dont count for much. In reality, he really does not believe this statement, he says it and uses it and it seems to confuse him, making him question his purpose in life. Just like some of the authors other characters, the narrator is single, a loner, and lives by himself with no obvious connections with friends or family. Due to this, he marvels at the connection between the elephant and its keeper, their closeness to one another. Subsequent to the elephants disappearance, the narrator feels low, more isolated, and alone than ever. Murakami uses the motif of water to reinforce readers awareness of disappearance or a sense of dissolution. The narrator, when discussing how the interest factor in the elephants disappearance faded after a few months had passed, states, Amid the endless surge and ebb of everyday life, interest in a missing elephant could not last forever, thus likening daily life to the eroding action of ocean tides. The water motif occurs again several paragraphs later, when the narrator compares summer memories to water flowing into the sewers and rivers, to be carried to the deep, dark ocean. Here too the water motif conveys a sense of things disappearing inevitably into a vast ocean. Since water can evaporate into air and is inherently unstable, this motif mirrors the vanishing, parallels the idea of impermanence, and suggests the narrators sense of being unsettled by a world out of balance. Murakami instills the image of rain into the reader in order to express a sense of gloom and/or sadness. The narrator exemplifies this as he describes the now empty elephant house, A few short months without its elephant had given the place an air of doom and desolation that hung there like a huge, oppressive rain cloud. Afterward, when he is talking to the editor, he mentions the presence of a quiet, dam rain, once again putting forth the existence of an unrelenting, corroding, and perturbing force. Their conversation starts to take a strange course at the mention of the elephant and afterwards the narrator makes a comparison with the melting ice in the editors drink to a tiny ocean current. With this image, it is possible that Murakami again creates an ambience of things dissolving in some sinister, enveloping force. In my opinion, Murakami did an amazing job embedding themes throughout his short story The Elephant Vanishes. He used his abstract writing to convey important societal messages like imbalance, perception, and the views of modern living. Murakami also made the story more personal by incorporating a first person stance. This single view enhanced the confusion. By using dialogue, his motifs, and his similes, Haruki Murakami kept the story enjoyable and readable, although it is sometimes hard to follow along. At the end of the story, it is difficult not to ask questions about the society portrayed in the book. I believe this is what the author was aiming for and I believe he succeeded. By asking questions about the story, the reader, in actuality, is asking questions about their own world.

The Pitfalls of Title IX :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

The Pitfalls of Title IX Living with a family that includes three very athletic sisters and me, I attend a number of girls/woman's sports and in a few cases, boy's sports. Nothing makes me happier than to see my 11-year-old sister tackle some little smart-ass boy who thinks that the only thing she should be doing is playing with dolls. Or to hear my other two sisters brag about how they both pinned boys in their younger years of wrestling, even though the kid probably never stepped on a mat again. I would like to see each of my sisters go on to have very successful careers in both athletics and in the economic world. I believe that Title IX is doing this job, but I am sure that this can be gone about in another way. What eurchs me the most is that in order for my dream of my sisters to become so successful in sports, men's sports have to be cut. This means that the opportunities that many young men have put so much time into are not available to them because of Title IX(every source that I have but one or tw o). In 1972, Congress passed the Educational Amendments. One section of this law, Title IX, prohibits discrimination against girls and women in federally funded education, including in athletics programs(Empowering). Since 1972, the number of women athletes that were attending college was represented by only 15% compared to a study taken in 1995 that showed that 37% were competing in college athletics while attending college. In the years 1992-1996 woman gained 23,166 participants in 17 different intercollegiate sports. In the same years, men only gained 12,518 in 21 different sports. The problem is that in many of these 21 men's sports there are a negative number of participants. In the same years and the same study, there was about 1,160 woman's teams added to college sports. In the same study there was a gain of 576 men's teams which again there was a negative number of teams added in many sports(Riley). There has been multiple men's sports cut while over the same period of time woman 's sports has done a nine fold. So, women are catching up to men's athletics, but they are doing it in the wrong type of manner. Men's sports are being cut to get this equity(Powers). In 1996, the Clinton administration

How to measure Poverty In Ireland

What is Poverty? Poverty is when a person or a family does not have enough money to meet basic needs such as clothes, food and shelter. People may experience debt, social exclusion, and be unable to afford education, housing and even medical bills of any kind. Consequences of poverty can affect both the physical and mental health of those experiencing it, as well as, having high economic costs, and can result in a rise in crime and drug culture. There is a number of ways to measure poverty; the first one I am going to discuss is Measuring Relative Poverty.Relative Poverty means having an income below 60% of he median income for an adult per week. For example, if the median income is Ð ²?200 per adult per week and the said adult earns Just Ð ²?180 per week they are said to be experiencing relative poverty. To put it simply relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. This method is quite useful in measuring poverty in 1st World Countries (Developed Countries). Its works parti cularly well and can be quite accurate in developed countries because they tend to have all employed and unemployed people on record and know exactly how much people are earning.Whereas, in developing Mounties the information they have (if any) on their population can be inaccurate and definitely less trust worthy. I think that this is definitely a good way to measure poverty once you can be sure that the information supplied to you is accurate. The only discrepancy I see in this method is that it is not thorough enough and does not look at the daily struggles people face like measuring consistent poverty does. Measuring relative Poverty changes with a nations view on what a decent standard of living is. Another way to measure poverty is Measuring Consistent Poverty.Like measuring relative poverty, measuring consistent poverty also means having an income below 60% of the median income per adult per week, but also â€Å"experiencing enforced deprivation†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ. It means that a person is earning below 60% of the median income and is unable to afford fundamental commodities like new clothes, â€Å"not being able to afford food such as meats or fish†ii, being unable to heat your home, or having to go into debt in order to pay your bills. Measuring consistent poverty is more appropriate for developing nations where people are faced with starvation and death daily.Measuring Relative Poverty would not work here because most people would have no income at all and those who earn over 60% of the median may still be facing starvation or death too. I definitely feel that measuring consistent poverty is a more accurate measure of poverty because it does not measure poverty in terms of how a nation decides what a decent standard of living is but in fact measures it in terms of how people are coping with what they earn. The final way to measure poverty which I am going to discuss is the United Nations Poverty Index.The United Nations Poverty Index is based on 3 key factors; survival, knowledge and a decent standard of living. Is does not measure poverty with respect to income. It is â€Å"derived separately for developing countries and a group of select high-income countries to better reflect socio-economic differences and also the widely different measures of deprivation in the two groups†iii. The first factor in which they take into account is survival; they look at what the probability is of what the average age the average person will live to.In developing countries they usually set the age at 40 years of age whereas in high-income (developed countries) they use 60 years of age and then compare the results. The second factor in which they use to measure poverty is knowledge (or literacy). They accumulate the percentile of adults that are able to both read and write. The UN (United Nations) believes that being excluded from the â€Å"world of reading and communication† is definitely an indication of poverty.The third (an d final) aspect they use to measure poverty is the overall standard of standard of living. They look at the countries â€Å"overall economic provisioning†iv and then make a Judgment on the situation. I believe that this is quite a useful way to measure poverty but only for extremely poor countries (developing Mounties). With such a big body like the UN they need a general system like this in place in order to measure poverty in multiple countries and then compare them with one another.Personally I think that measuring relative poverty is the best and most efficient way to measure poverty in Ireland. Ireland is a first world country and, before the recession, had a low percentage of unemployment. The issues I have with this method are that I think it should take into account the daily disadvantages people may or may not face. This would increase accuracy and give the country more knowledge on how poor people facing poverty really are.It is also based on what the government bel ieves is a decent standard of living, which I think is very hard to Judge and could cause for discrepancies in the resulting statistic. In respect to the other two measures (measuring consistent poverty and the United Nations poverty index), I feel that they would not be Justified in Ireland because the poverty in Ireland is not anywhere near as serve as it is in developing countries, but I do think that we could do with implementing some of the characteristics from these measures in order to increase the accuracy of our measure.

The Indigenous Rights Of Brazil - 1783 Words

Indigenous rights in Brazil have been very vague throughout the years and were difficult to obtain since many indigenous tribes were seen as an inferior class. There are around 900,000 indigenous people with a total of 240 tribes in Brazil in contrast to the 11 million indigenous people that lived there before the European colonist arrived. It was predicted that 90% died in the first years from diseases that they were not exposed to, such as the flu and smallpox, and the rest who survived the diseases were enslaved. Brazil has one third of the world’s rainforest and half of the amazon forest, but with the expansion of neoliberal policies deforestation has become a serious problem. According to Brazilian authorities, the rubber and cattle industries are responsible for 80% of the deforestation (COHA). This has evidently affected many indigenous communities that lived in the Amazon forest, displacing them from their lands and exploiting them for hard labor. By the 1950s, many pr edicted that the indigenous population in Brazil would disappear, but they have been able to recover by becoming active in the movement against neoliberal policies and their rights as human. In the second half of the twentieth century, the indigenous population has been able to create a network with many NGOs and activists communities to help them raise awareness of the environmental and human rights being violated by these multi-national corporations in the Amazon. Two events that were responsible forShow MoreRelatedLinguistic imperialism in Brazil Essays1349 Words   |  6 PagesLinguistic imperialism in Latin America started with the ‘discovery’ and the occupation of the New World by the European powers. Spanish and Portuguese language were imposed on the local populations and therefore many indigenous languages vanished. This essay will especially focus on Brazil and the linguistic imperialism of Portuguese in that country. 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