Analysis Paper Step 2: Literature Review

Analysis Paper Step 2: Literature Review

     The short story “The Elephant Vanishes” talks about a man who lives in a small town in Japan. An old elephant disappears overnight, together with its keeper. Citizens fears mount and some call for probe. This remains a mystery because no one knows how the elephant can escape from the house. However, the narrator thinks that he is the only witness. From his sight, the balance between the elephant and the keeper is broken at that time. The size of the bodies of elephant keeper changes and he believed that the elephant keeps shrinking until it is small enough to escape.

     At the end of the story, the papers print almost nothing about the elephant anymore. People seem to have forgotten that their town once owned an elephant. The elephant and keeper have vanished completely. They will never be coming back.

[1] In my opinion, Murakami did an amazing job embedding themes throughout his short story The Elephant Vanishes. He used his abstract writing to convey important societal messages like imbalance, perception, and the views of modern living.

[2] Murakami intermingles reality with fantasy, memory with illusion, and the physical world with metaphysical contemplation. His characters are ordinary people. Their ontological relationship with reality appears to be defined by their ability to create unreality.

[3] The complete vanishing of the elephant with its keeper indicates that all the warm, romantic, and sincere parts of society unavoidably give way to the pragmatism and realism.

Work Cited:

[1]"The Elephant Vanishes Haruki Murakami English Literature Essay." UKessays.com. 11 2013. All Answers Ltd. 05 2015

[2] "The Elephant Vanishes" Literary Masterpieces, Critical Compilation Ed. Frank Northen Magill. eNotes.com, Inc. 1991 eNotes.com 31 May, 2015

[3] Li, Xinyu. "The Loss of True Intimacy In the Realistic World" SBC blog pag. Web. Nov 28th, 2011