Double Consciousness in Sputnik Sweetheart

“I was split in two forever” (157).

As I read our assigned excerpt from Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart, I could help but notice the articulation of Miu’s “double consciousness.” Termed by W.E.B. DeBois in The Souls of Black Folk, a double consciousness is a source of inward “twoness;” it is the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society, where an individual struggles between an authentic self, and a self that has been constructed in response to oppressive narratives regarding their social class. The tale of Miu’s Marie Antoinette syndrome seems to emulate a double consciousness in class and sexuality. 

In terms of class, the interruption of Miu’s cyclic routine in Switzerland seems to comment on the nature of capitalism, and reminds me a lot of Marx’s Theory of Alienation. For a short time, she appears to enjoy her routine; she goes to work, and she goes to music festivals. However, the “ominous shadow” that begins to spread over her life signifies a growing discontent with her routine (146). She breaks from her routine when she decides to stop at the carnival, noting that “she’d be taking a nice hot bath right now, snuggling into bed with a good book. As she always did,” but is trapped in the circular motion of the ferris wheel, where she is forced to be a voyeur of her own life (152).

To me, this signifies the cyclic and meaningless nature of life that capitalism produces. When she begins to grow tired of her routine, she attempts to deviate. However, she is still forced to experience a cyclic motion, and is forced to be voyeur of her life. She notes that “it gave her a guilty feeling to look at her own room from so far away through the binoculars, as if she were peeking in on herself” (150). In her split self, she is able to recognize the lack of humanity that capitalism produces by recognizing individuals as machinery. In Marx’s Theory of Alienation, he notes that, under capitalism, individuals are estranged from aspects of their human nature. Miu notes that growing up, whenever she “saw a person in trouble, somebody paralyzed by events, [she] decided it was entirely his fault–he just wasn’t trying hard enough. People who complained were just plain lazy. My outlook on life was unshakable, and practical, but lacked any human warmth. And not a single person around me pointed this out.” (159) This was because all she could think about was “becoming a world-class pianist,” and “deviating from that path was not an option. Something was missing in [her], but by the time [she] noticed the gap, it was too late” (159). 

Further, upon further reading, I learned that there are homosexual themes between Miu and another character. This makes it seem, to me, that the scene she watches from the ferris wheel displays a double consciousness in sexuality. The self having sexual relations with Fernando appears to display the oppressive facet of her double consciousness, the one that has been constructed under and oppressive society. She notes that “it was all meaningless and obscene,” and that she “didn’t mind one-night stands,” but “never did [she] once truly love someone” (156, 159). It seems as though the split of the self and her comments on the matter are meant to signify a compulsory heterosexuality of sorts. 

In all, Miu’s experience seems to emulate W.E.B. DeBois’s ideas of the double consciousness. Murakami specifies that when he writes, “my parents weren’t the type to be strict about things, but that’s one thing they drummed into my head since I can remember. You are a foreigner here. I decided that in order to survive, I needed to make myself stronger” (159). Though there are surely other interpretations, the “twoness” outlined by Miu outline a common reaction to oppression.

 

Lexi