Fearful The Characteristics of Kawashima Masayuki

41 The above quotation shows his first violence that he did when he was nineteen years old. When he was seventeen, Kawashima lived with a stripper who was older than him. That stripper was his ex-girlfriend. One day his ex-girlfriend was angry at him. At first Kawashima thought that his ex-girlfriend only showed common anger at him so he did not respond it seriously. He thought like that because he thought that he was the only one who cared about her but he was wrong. His ex-girlfriend was really angry at him until she did not allow him to touch her. The reaction that was showed by his ex-girlfriend already terrified him. He was afraid that she would leave him. Here, his fear led him to think that he must stab his girlfriend using an ice pick before she finished taking a shower and left him. Kawashima was sure that to keep someone to stay and be what he wanted them to be, he must do something to hold it or just to make that person afraid of him. In this novel, Kawashima is a cold man who had psychological problem. Although he did not really kill someone yet, and the desire to kill or stab someone only appeared in his mind, they are still part of violence because it is a crime. Other evidence that also shows he is violent is the way he thinks. In the beginning of the story, he always played with his mind and sometimes his mind controlled him until it built wrong or negative perception. Below is the evidence that shows his second violence when he suddenly remembered the situation and condition at Home. “Focusing alternately on his own reflection in the bedewed window and the nightscape of Tokyo at his feet, Kawashima began to think himself as a representative. A Representative of all the children who’d become insignificant dots in the dark diorama; a martyr armed with only an ice 42 pick, facing down the enemy hordes. Flushed with a sense of omnipotence, he summoned up the faces of the children in the Home one by one and told them: Just wait and see, his lips grazed the window-pane, and several drops of water ran down the glass like little bugs scattering. I’ll kill them all for you, Kawashima muttered again and again” Murakami, 2007: 58. Kawashima’s bad experience was the same with all children in Home. Since he was kid until he stayed at Home, he never forgot what his mother had done to him. He and people at Home hated their parents because they had been ignored and abused. That is why he thought that all children in Home were as fragile as him. From the above quotation, he was thinking that killing someone who already hurt children’s life would help those children in Home. Kawashima also thought that children who lived in darkness like him would feel better and powerful because children who were like him are children who were struggling to feel love from his parents but they had never obtained it. The situation and condition in Home made Kawashima think that he was the representative for all children in Home; the one who could take revenge and help other children to be happy. Here, the thought of killing someone is categorized as a part of violence. The last evidence that shows he is violent is when he slapped his mother. Here, what he did made him think that he is strong and powerful. “Look at the woman standing there. See how she fears me. The whole world shall learn to fear me. He remembered feeling this way once before. This time the sensation was even more intense, but the first time was when he’d hit his mother. Seeing her after all those years, he couldn’t get over how small she looked. As if she’d shrunk. Like the toy monster they used to sell that expanded in water and shrank when it dried. That was her, all dried up and shrunken. Just to see her like that had been enough for him, but then she had to go and act timid and scared. ‘You forgive your mother, don’t you?’ That’s when he hit her, when he saw how scared she was” Murakami, 2007: 170. 43 The above quotation shows how happy and satisfied Kawashima was when he slapped his mother for the first time. How happy he was when he saw his mother begging for his forgiveness. What he did to his mother was the beginning of his violence and it made Kawashima feels great and powerful. All behaviors that grew in Kawashima, especially violence, are one of the many effects from the abuses that his mother had done to him. Here, Kawashima did not realize that his behavior led him to do violence. That behavior is beyond his control. Every time he felt afraid, anxious or suspicious about a person, he usually thought that he must stab that person using an ice pick. Automatically, he thought of a concept of “to kill or to be killed”. He could think about and do it because he was lack of love and affection when he was a kid until it made him to want to be understood and does not want to be ignored by someone.

6. In Doubt

In the story, Kawashima was described as a person who wanted to stab his own daughter, Little Rie. Every time he tried to stab his daughter he became anxious and it began from the fear that came suddenly then continued to become suspicious. “Kawashima stroked the surface of that fine layer of fuzz, first with a fingertip and then with the tip of the instrument. It really is alright, I’m not going to stab the baby” Murakami, 2007: 5. Kawashima Masayuki faced doubtful situation. He felt in doubt toward the action that he wanted to do or take. In the beginning of the story, every midnight for almost ten days he always checked his daughter. He did it after he was taking