Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Kafka on the Shore, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Mind vs. The Body
Fate and Prophecy
The Virtues of Self-Sufficiency
Music and Introspection
Summary
Analysis
Nakata and Hoshino check into a hotel in Takamatsu. Hoshino asks Nakata if he can remember the accident from when he was a boy. Nakata remembers feeling as if his mind was floating separately from his body. He still doesn’t know what the entrance stone is for, but he knows now that it is white, round, and about the size of an LP record. He also knows that he is destined to move the stone.
Like other characters in the novel, Nakata has both a sense of destiny and a sense of self that seems to be trapped within his body. But unlike other characters, because of his unique past, Nakata experiences these things very literally.
Themes
Nakata and Hoshino spend the next couple of days in the library, trying to find information about the entrance stone. But their search reveals nothing. On the second afternoon, Nakata announces that it will rain the next day.
Nakata seems to be gifted with prescience, but not complete knowledge—he knows about the existence of the stone, but not where to find it or what it does, and he seems to be able to predict the weather, but does not know why and is usually not believed.
Themes
After dinner, Hoshino wanders Takamatsu alone, thinking about their quest. Suddenly, he is approached by an old man in a white suit who somehow knows his name. The man introduces himself as Colonel Sanders and says he can set Hoshino up with a prostitute. Hoshino isn’t interested, until the Colonel announces that he knows about the search for the entrance stone, and he knows where it is. Shocked, Hoshino follows.
These strange events seem to confirm Nakata’s predictions, heightening the impression that the world is controlled by fate and it is possible to predict the future.
Themes
