The Elephant Vanishes: Stories

The title of the collection (and of the collection’s titular story) foreshadows Murakami’s penchant for animal imagery and symbolism. Murakami often uses animals to add texture and nuance to his themes and characterizations. In “The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women,” for example, the narrator uses the “wind-up bird” as a metaphor for the nature of reality (and a vehicle to reflect on his own existential dread). In “The Second Bakery Attack,” the narrator and his wife are described as “scanning the street like hungry eagles in search of prey” (44) as they search for a bakery to rob. Animals play a more central role in several stories, including “The Kangaroo Communiqué” (where the narrator thinks of the woman while watching kangaroos at the zoo). In “The Dancing Dwarf,” the narrator works at a factory that manufactures elephants, and “The Elephant Vanishes” recounts the mysterious disappearance of an elephant and his keeper from their town. In each case, Murakami uses animals as symbols of different aspects of human life and existence in the modern world.