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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Each Other's Mirrors:
When Toru arrives at the Ami Hostel, Reiko tells him that the hostel operates in specific and unusual ways. This includes its honesty policy as well as more general guidelines for how everyone should support each other. In Chapter 6, as she explains, she uses the metaphor in which each resident is a mirror of other residents:
The best thing about this place is the way everybody helps everybody else. Everybody knows they’re flawed in some way, and so they try to help each other. . . We’re all each other's mirrors, and the doctors are part of us.
Norwegian Wood’s characters act as each other’s mirrors throughout the novel—they’re changed by each other’s actions and find reflections of themselves in the people around them. Individual traumas are inherited and absorbed by other characters, becoming communal. For most of the novel, this mirroring of flaws drags everyone down. Naoko’s fear of intimacy drags Toru down; Toru’s fascination with Naoko drags Midori down, Nagasawa’s womanizing drags Hatsumi down. Each character is each other’s mirror—but in a destructive sense.
In this passage, Reiko uses the mirror metaphor to outline an idealized version of this phenomenon. Everyone is still flawed. But by acknowledging this and reflecting flaws back at each other, they can help each other heal. This fits in with the sense that the sanatorium is a heavenly antidote to the horrible nature of normal life. Reiko herself serves as somewhat of a doctor to Naoko, and at the end of the novel, she explicitly becomes a mirror to Naoko as she steps into the role Naoko served in Toru’s life.
Related Themes:
