ABSTRACT
Through a discussion of Murakami’s first-person narrators and their implication for his female character construction, this chapter challenges previous criticisms of women figures in Murakami’s works. Dividing his first-person narrators into three types (boku, male watashi, and female watashi), the chapter shows how his few female watashi-narrated stories function to provide an alternative glimpse into the challenges particular to the expression of female agency. Specific Murakami stories are, however, often not conveyed by one overall reliable narrator and the chapter therefore also discusses ‘voice’, ‘focalisation’, ‘participation’ and ‘reliability’, showing how these concepts may play an important part in the techniques and narrative strategies for female character construction across his literary worlds.
