One of the most interesting selective usages of names in A Wild Sheep Chase was the way the narrator and other characters would refer to or regard Boku's girlfriend. After arriving in the "other world", Sapporo, the world of Boku begins to significantly change. Besides larger, more obvious changes such as the Sheep Man/Professor, this "other world" takes Boku's knowledge, experience, and relationships that he came into this new world with and distorts them. This effect is achieved through textual reference to Boku's girlfriend leading up to her disappearance.
One of Murakami's writing techniques that contribute to this effect is underspecifying dialogue, used extensively in the final part of the book. Although it is usually clear whose lines are whose, it can get confusing to sort through in longer exchanges. This is another way in which Murakami is able to pose a series of questions about names, personhood, and uniqueness, at the centerfold of which is: what is the purpose of a name?
From this passage, it seems that Murakami's answer is that names are simply used to keep track of the different people in your life. They have a purpose but it is not as sentimental or emotional as one might expect. The subtle logical explanation of names, supported by the actions of the driver, in the scene up the mountain is juxtaposed on the world where logic seems to not matter, or there seems to be a new set of rules.
In the "other world", when she is mentioned, Boku's girlfriend is almost exclusively referred to as "she." While reading this last part of the book, even though there is only one female character in these scenes, I had to keep remembering who this "she" was. Even though it is a human pronoun, continually referring to her as "she" contributed to her dehumanization by removing her name.
When "she" is finally referred to as "my girlfriend" when she questions the caretaker, "What do sheep do over the winter?" (Murakami 168), the caretaker "turned around and gazed at her, practically drinking in her face, as if he hadn't noticed her before" (168). It is easy to write off Murakami's scenes as bizarre or reality-bending and leave it at that. The scene confirmed my suspicions that something was going on with the way these characters were interacting with the girlfriend. The caretaker and Boku are given normal dialogue (relative to the other world) and only the girlfriend is relegated to this "other" status. The driver's reaction corroborated my reaction that until she speaks, Boku's girlfriend is being dehumanized through the removal of her name and that all the uses of empty dialogue or "she" contribute to this effect, which is not complete until she disappears.
It's also worth noting that "my girlfriend" isn't much of a name, either, but it seems to satisfy the purpose of uniquely referring to her enough that it does not cause her to decay until it is taken one step further and she is totally denied individual personhood. Here, Murakami is implying that being a person is being treated like a person. This logical progression could also be used to substantiate the claim that the Sheep Man is a man and a sheep simply because that is what he is called, so it must be; the same goes for the Sheep Professor
Understanding the effect of names and pronouns in this passage builds up to the denouement of the book in which her depersonalization is complete and she disappears in central to understanding the commentary Murakami is building in this book.
Timothy Obiso
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