Anxious The Characteristics of Kawashima Masayuki

38 More evidence that shows his fear is when he heard the voice that he used to hear at Home. That voice made him remember the situation and condition at Home a place for children who get abused by their parents. Every time he heard it and remembered his past life at Home, he would imagine it then he became terrified and fragile. He remembered what he felt when he was at Home. There, he saw that many kids at Home were similar to him, children who wanted to be loved and cared by their own parents. Therefore, every time he remembered a life at Home, he felt afraid. It can be seen from the quotation below. “Keeping them closed was no more defence against the images that accompanied the sparks than plugging his ears was against the voice from inside, the voice he heard echoing off the interior walls of his skin. Only voices and images from the external world could neutralise those from inside. That was why Kawashima’s greatest fear-far greater for him than the fear of death – was of losing his sight and hearing to some illness or accident. Cut off from actual sights and sounds, with the unchecked terror swelling inside him, he knew he’d go mad in no time” Murakami, 2007: 141-142. Another fear that also terrified him also can be seen when he thought that what his mother used to say to him when he was a kid was right. It happened when Kawashima was at Sanada’s apartment. There, he learned about Sanada until he remembered the terrifying story that he got from his mother. Usually, when his mother got angry and beat him, his mother also said bad words to him like he would hear voices that could not be heard by people around him, he would be manipulated, and would become crazy like his mother’s friend who suffered from schizophrenia p.152. Below is the evidence that shows his fear of being manipulated by his own thought. 39 “People like the one his mother had described were called schizophrenics. And one of the symptoms of a schizophrenic breakdown was the delusion that someone or something was manipulating you, making you say things or do things against your will. I didn’t plan to kill her, officer. It was beyond my control. The girl started stabbing her own leg, and after that she begged me to kill her. She lay down naked on the bed, and when I planted the knife in her she was very happy and died smiling. Imagine saying something like that, Kawashima thought. They’d put me in the nuthouse for sure. If anyone’s manipulating me, though, it isn’t this girl. She’s just a servant, a slave.” Murakami, 2007: 152-153. The statement from Kawashima’s mother really influences his life. Children are usually easy to save memories and it happened to Kawashima. Since he was kid until he had become an adult, he could not forget every single word that came out from his mother’s mouth. Kawashima thought that what his mother used to tell that he had already been manipulated by the condition that he had faced was true. That is why he started to think about what he would have to say if he was interrogated by the police if he killed Sanada. Here, he thought that it was not Sanada who manipulated him but some random suicidal erotomaniac that wanted him to go insane.

4. Spiteful

Kawashima could not forget what his mother already did to him. All abuses that he received had left trauma and hatred. In the novel, the author described Kawashima as a spiteful person. Below is the evidence showing how much he hate his mother. “If the victim didn’t speak Japanese well, it would be difficult to set things up properly, and besides, it was imperative that her expressions of terror and anguish be in Japanese. Why? He wondered about that for a moment but stopped when an image of his mother threatened to form in his mind. He must concentrate only on the business at hand” Murakami, 2007: 41. 40 From the above quotation, the writer sees that what happened to Kawashima in his past life leaves a big trauma in him. The abuses that he received from his mother made him terrified and angry every time he remembered his mother, and those feeling usually appeared together in his mind. The reason why the writer concludes that Kawashima is a spiteful person is because through the above quotation, the destructive image of his mother when he made some plans to stab a prostitute suddenly disturbed his mind. Here, it is described that Kawashima could not forget his dark past life and he did not want the image of his mother to distract his mind and all activities that he did.

5. Violent

Bad experiences during childhood influence Kawashima’s behavior. Here, his fearful, anxious, spiteful and suspicious characteristics led him to become violent. Feeling afraid of being left alone and ignored by someone whom he liked made him think that he must kill her before she left him. Kawashima is a man who during his childhood never felt love and affection from his mother. The way his mother treated him when he was a kid made him become someone who was spiteful and violent. All abuses that he accepted when he was a kid such as physical and mental abuse from his mother had already affected Kawashima’s behavior in his adult’s life. “He mustn’t let her go. He was racking his brain, thinking he had to do something before she finished showering, when suddenly there was a crackling of little explosions where his senses of sight and smell and hearing collided” Murakami, 2007: 27. 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