The Elephant Vanishes: Stories

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1993

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Symbols & Motifs

Animals

The title of the collection (and of the collection’s titular story) foreshadows Murakami’s penchant for animal imagery and symbolism. Murakami often uses animals to add texture and nuance to his themes and characterizations. In “The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women,” for example, the narrator uses the “wind-up bird” as a metaphor for the nature of reality (and a vehicle to reflect on his own existential dread). In “The Second Bakery Attack,” the narrator and his wife are described as “scanning the street like hungry eagles in search of prey” (44) as they search for a bakery to rob. Animals play a more central role in several stories, including “The Kangaroo Communiqué” (where the narrator thinks of the woman while watching kangaroos at the zoo). In “The Dancing Dwarf,” the narrator works at a factory that manufactures elephants, and “The Elephant Vanishes” recounts the mysterious disappearance of an elephant and his keeper from their town. In each case, Murakami uses animals as symbols of different aspects of human life and existence in the modern world.

Domestic Activities

Domestic activities are another prominent motif in the stories, representing the mundane aspects of life that often give meaning to existence. Cooking in particular is featured in many of the stories. For example, the first story of the collection, “The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women,” begins with the narrator cooking spaghetti. “The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler’s Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds” ends with the narrator cooking dinner with his girlfriend. In the letter quoted at the beginning of “A Window,” the narrator praises his correspondent’s letter as “so rich with the genuine sense of daily living. How vividly is conveyed the warm aromas of the kitchen, the lively tapping of the knife against the cutting board as it slice[s] through the onion!” (168). In “Sleep,” the narrator frequently reflects on her domestic responsibilities, including cooking and cleaning, finding them dull and repetitive. Domestic activities represent an essential aspect of life, which can be alternately dull, torturous, and meaningful.

Sound

Murakami draws on sound, especially music, in many of his stories to signal a longing for social connection and human relationships. The woman to whom “The Kangaroo Communiqué” is addressed initially reached out to the narrator’s department store because she bought a record of Brahms instead of Mahler. The narrator of “The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler’s Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds” makes a point of listening to “innocuous” music as he updates his diary, and even picks out an appropriate record when the wind picks up. The dwarf of “The Dancing Dwarf” strews records around him as he dances in the narrator’s first dream. Other sounds also emerge in the stories. The narrator of “The Little Green Monster” hears a “funny, muffled sort of rumbling sound” (152) as the monster burrows up from the earth and thinks that the sound may be coming from inside herself. The narrator of TV People is very sensitive to the sounds around him, especially the sound of the clock, and “The Silence” explores the absence of sound as a metaphor for the absence of social connection.