Application of Media Theory to After Dark by Haruki Murakami
After Dark is a novel which was originally written in Japanese and translated into English for other people to read and understand. The book talks about the way people think and relate to the community. The characters are portrayed in a way that they appear to be lost in an imaginary world to discover personality. After Dark is a story with unique characters, who undergoes a series of confusion and face several challenges, to understand more about the context in After Dark, we will have a summary of events that took place from the beginning to the end of the novel. The story starts on an eventful night in central Tokyo with a young girl called Maria Asai, who was about 19 years. Maria was a shy student who best suits in Tokyo’s nightlife. The girl was reading a textbook in a nearby Denny one night. When she reached her destination, Maria met with Tetsuya Takahashi, who was a trombone player and a law student. Tetsuya decided to sit in the table where Mari thought that she would remember who he was, but she was focused on her textbook. He began talking to Mari, slowly asking her that she accompany him during the time he will be courting Eri, who was a model and a fashion icon. Tetsuya was attracted by Eri some time back, and he was trying every means possible to get her.
When the conversation ends, we discover that we are in a dark area that resembles the underworld, and Eri, who was a beautiful model, was there sleeping beside a television. There was a looming existence prowling near her when she was asleep. The story continues, and in the next scene, Murakami brings us to a pair, which as sitting in Denny’s where Tetsuya had finished practicing with a band, and he was preparing to depart. When the guys leave the place, there is a fat lady who comes back there in Denny asking for Mari. Kaoru, who was having blond hair and a scaring appearance, was the manager of Alphaville, which was a “love hotel.” Kaoru was a former wrestler; this means that he was powerful, and everybody feared him because of his size and history as a wrestler. Mari was speaking Chinese, and Kaoru decided to use this advantage to ask her to talk to a Chinese prostitute who was injured by a particular guy. Kaoru could not understand what the Chinese prostitute was speaking, and he needed someone who could interpret what she was saying.
Kaoru organized and called for someone to come and pick the Chinese prostitute; then, he went with Mari to a nearby restaurant. Mari told him that she did not have a close connection with her sister since they grew up with Eri, who received all the attention. Everybody prioritized Eri, she was not recognized by anybody, and this issue interfered with their relationship. Her parents did not like her so much since she had studied the Chinese language, which they did not like. After that, Kaoru, who was a manager, reviewed the footage of the Chinese woman who was injured, and he discovered the guy who tortured her was an office worker called Shirakwa. Kaoru gathered several Chinese guys, and they decided to purse Shirakwa and punish him for his hatred. We are taken to another scene of the story where we realize that Shirakwa was working late at night, a software engineer in a nearby organization. We are then taken back to the scene whereby Mai talks to Eri and Tetsuya. Tetsuya later says that he had once gone to Alphaville hotel with Eri and that is the reason why he developed an interest to be closer to her.
Another scene we see Eri seeing her image appearing on the screen of a television screen and she is totally Attracted by the TV. There is a guy whose identity is concealed watching as Eri sleeps, the book shows that this might be Shirakwa who was a manager. Eri who was tired and confused wakes up and the image which was appearing on the television starts to fade and then disappears. As the story continues, we come to discover that Eri was sleeping for more than two months and she was conscious for only a short period. This is an indication that she had an issue which we do not know and she had found any solution. Early in the morning, Mari was accompanied to a railway station by Tetsuya who was asking her if they could go for a date. Mari reveals to him that she will be going out to Beijing for more than half a year but she agrees Tetsuya to be writing for her. Mari enters the Eris house and realizes that she is asleep once again but when Mari starts to sleep, Eri starts to be awaken again.
Media theory refers to the complex of socio-political-philosophical rules that arrange concepts about the connection between media and the community. After Dark which was a novel written by Murakami is considered part of the media since it passes some information to the society. There are different themes, and ideas which found this novel and it contain information portrayed to us in different ways. The author of this novel decided to use unique strategies to educate the society about different evils found in the society. The media usually reflects the basics beliefs and assumptions in the society, the community have different views on matters such as freedom equality, and cultural diversity or social responsibility. Different people have unique principles and priorities which might be distinct from what other people believe in different places. The author of After Dark used media theories to portray different behavior of the characters in the book and how they affect the society in general. The character and unique behavior which affected how they interacted with each other.
Haruki Murakami applied media theory in portraying the message he had planned to pass to the community in his novel After Dark. The English version of the book is well presented and it contains important ideas which are useful to the readers. The novel is written in a way that puts the reader off-guard then finally back to track and understand what is going on. When reading the After Dark, our views shift and we quickly change the focus to understand exactly what is taking place throughout the whole novel. This is a unique way of presenting ideas and it involves different accounts which might leave the reader confused if he or she is not careful with the story. The events in the book takes place just as TV camera acts and the collective voice helps us to be keen observers and we are not allowed to intervene before the actions taking place. All the actions in the novel takes place within the real time which is the same night and it is easy to read the story since it is short. The author decided to use a unique style that will capture the attention of the reader and also challenge them to think critically about the events that were taking place in the novel.
In After Dark, we see different people who try so much to connect their feelings with the stifling culture and different demands. There are different elements which are present in After Dark, this book is about the duality and the interconnection of community, facts and human nature. This themes are seen from the begging of the story where the above sight of Tokyo is compared to a tall creature or a collective entity developed by many linking creatures. During the short time at night the events take place, we will see different people who will cross paths and change others’ lives. A good example is Tetsuya who tells us about his plan of degree in law. We also see a unique guy called Shirakwa who was very hard working man but had a dark secret. He was managing a love hotel which operated at night, this a place where prostitution took place and nobody expected that Shirakwa could be that type of a person running such kind of business. The author used media theory to portray the characters in the novel, there were different twists and turns in the book which could confuse a person if he or she was not careful.
The connection between Mari and Eri who were sisters portrays the themes of duality and interconnectivity. The two sisters had different behavior from each other, for example, Mari liked reading a lot of books, and she appeared to be having a social problem. She was bullied when she was still young and this issue affected her since she had complaints about her physical appearance. She was complaining that she was small, her boobs not a good size, nearsighted and astigmatic. This means that she had a low self-esteem and there was a lot of bad things going in her mind. Her sister Eri was attractive and she was having goods deals in the model industry. Since she was young, the girl was being compared to Sleeping Beauty and other beautiful iconic people. Her bedrooms were full of decorations with a lot of her pictures and bookshelves which had magazines. This depicts an image of what she was and we can easily predict that she was self-centered since she only cared about herself and not her sister who was feeling low and not attractive. The author used media theories to show us the true picture of who the girls were. We are able to see the characteristics of both Eri and Mari and through this, we know how we should value ourselves.
Although the two sisters had different personalities, we realize that they have some things in common. They all desire for a healthy relationship, the girls undergo a series of challenges which the author portrays to us in different ways. The story is twisted since it has many plots which are not resolved and readers should be ready for that. For example, we see that Mari can pull the whole night while her sister Eri cannot since she is asleep. Mari likes entertainment and she goes love hotels and other risky places, her sister was still in danger laying in her bed back at home. Eri who was asleep for two months was visited by a guy who was wearing a plastic mask inside the TV, this was something unusual and could cause fatal consequences to her. The author uses different media techniques to narrate the story which appears to be very hard to understand and interpret.
In conclusion, the novel After Dark by Murakami contains different themes which are very complicated and hard to understand. The author uses different media theories to portray the behavior of his characters. The events in the novel happen within a single night but there are different twists which a reader might not clearly understand if he or she is not careful. After Death is a good novel with good ideas that can help the society.