Being "in transit" in Drive My Car

 Since reading “Drive My Car,” I’ve been thinking about how the story mostly takes place in a car. This is somewhat expected/obvious because of the title but I think it is important to think about why Murakami chose this as a setting. I think that the characters physically being in transit allows Murakami to explore ideas of transience in regards to identity and relationships. In a way, the continued movement of the car allows for Murakami to show movement and change in the two main characters, Kafuku and Misaki. When Oba tells Kafuku about his new driver he says that Misaki is “brusque” and “shoots from the hip when she talks, which isn’t often” (Murakami 5). This assessment of her personality holds up in the first interaction between the two characters. Misaki is defiant and short with Kafuku. Yet once the two characters are in the car and driving, Kafuku asks Misaki a series of questions and she opens up slightly. The car, though moving, becomes the stable foundation of their relationship. In positioning both characters in the car, Murakami seems to be saying that both characters are on a similar journey, both literally and metaphorically. As Misaki shuttles Kafuku to and from the theater the two begin to understand each other more and more and Kafuku opens up about his wife and his friendship with his wife’s old lover. Change in their relationship is evident when Misaki makes Kafuku laugh, after which she says “that’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh” (Murakami 36). Misaki is no longer the defiant and untrusting person she was at the beginning of the text and Kafuku is less somber and brooding. Murakami doesn’t let the reader forget that the two characters are in the car because of his frequent descriptions of Misaki’s driving, the traffic, and the location of the car. This insistence seems to point to how important the aspect of driving, and of movement, is to the themes and meaning of the story. One can also see a sense of transience or instability to Kafuku’s personal identity, especially in regard to his affiliation with Uncle Vanya, the role he is playing during the story. Misaki drives him to the theater, where he is Uncle Vanya, and to his house, where he is presumably himself. Yet in the car he is both of these people. He practices his lines and assumes the character from the play but also is very much himself, as he tells Misaki intimate details about his life. This seems to be another way that the car becomes a space of transience or mobility within the text.

Maggie