The Ice Man, Haruki Marukami - 969 Words

Dr Icelove: Or I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Male Dominated Cultures â€Å"The Ice Man† by Haruki Murakami is a woman’s conflictive narrative incurred when facing a new identity spurred by the marriage of a man that does not fit her societal norms. She develops a relationship with a person dubbed the Ice Man even after a friend acknowledges he was different from them. The man’s unusual characteristics do not fit any niche she has come across in Japan. As their courtship turns into marriage, family protest and friends are unaccepting of the union. Marked the black sheep of family and ostracized by friends, she is left alone as he takes a job in a meat warehouse. Lonely, she†¦show more content†¦Why a woman would find herself in such a lonely state as a result, the reader must understand some of the traditional social hierarchy in Murakami’s choice of setting. Japan sociologically holds strong ties to their ancestry where families are so lely represented by the husband or father. Author and philosophy professor Miura Atsushi describes Japanese women as â€Å"non-holders of class status, who reach their social position only vicariously by means of marriage† (Schad-Seifert 149). When the wife selects the Ice Man as her husband, she has taken on a lesser identity than she previously held. The lower social status is the reason for the ostracizing from her former class. Sociologist Hara Junsuke and Sayama Kazou note that the interior of â€Å"Japan has always been a socially and economically divided society in which polarization is not a recent phenomenon† (Schad-Seifert 139). Differing classes of people do not intermingle with one and another. The South Pole is a metaphor representing the Ice Man’s class that she hasn’t been able to adopt. The wife is still seen as an outsider even though she married out of her family and friend’s social standing. A woman without her own group is left alienated and lonely. Murakami is using his knowledge of Japan’s culture to portray the internal conflict a person has trying to leave their roots and groups not allowing assimilation into their differing