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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
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a bath with his baby and had his baby dried by his wife Yoko. At that time, he saw Yoko murmuring something to Little Rie. Since then, the desire to stab his baby
started appearing. Kawashima thought that Rie is a threat. As the result, he wanted to stab his daughter. The desire to stab Rie appeared because he did not want
Yoko’s love to him to decrease. Bad experiences with his mother in his past life had made him suspicious to Rie and led him into irrational thinking.
Here, the writer concludes that Kawashima is in doubt because the writer sees that he was not sure whether he wanted to stab his baby or not. According to
M.J Murphy in Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English Poetry and English Novels for Overseas Students, the author of a literary work can give
herhis direct comment on a character in the story to make the character understandable Murphy, 1972: 161. In this novel, Kawashima played with his
own thought. Everything that he saw in front of him would disturb his thought and finally it provoked a reaction. The reaction that appeared when Kawashima played
with his own thought put him in doubt. Here, he was in doubt because he faced a situation that forced him to make a decision between becoming a murderer or a
father.
B. Paranoid Schizophrenia Reflected from the Characteristics
Murakami described and wrote his story very well. The way he delivered the main character in the story makes the reader easily understands the
characteristics of the main character and know what kind of person Kawashima is as the main character and how he becomes a paranoid schizophrenic. In the story,
the author described Kawashima as a normal person who married to Yoko. Before
