Society influences many people’s actions and leaves you with your responsibilities and hardships. In the story “Super Frog Saves Tokyo”, by Haruki Murakami, he illustrates how society gave no sympathy to the main character Katagiri, shaping him to be the person he is. He faces several unfortunate events that enables him to feel worthless within his society; until a frog and worm gave him purpose. With the development of Katagiri with the frog and worm, Murakami illustrates that society can leave you helpless, which is aided by the Freudian’s concepts of wish-fulfillment, dream-work, and human personalities.
“Super Frog Saves Tokyo” presents Katagiri as underappreciated, as his efforts were never acknowledged by others. He took on the burden of taking care of his siblings both his parent’s death. Frog explains to Katagiri, “You raised your teenage brother and sister single-handedly, put them through college and even arranged for them to marry, all at great sacrifice of your time and income… They have shown you no respect I almost wish I could beat them to a pulp on your behalf” (Murakami). Katagiri going his whole life unappreciated and unthanked for all his sacrifices for his family, which he wasn’t obligated to do, but did so willingly, was finally recognized by the frog. This animal brings light to how much Katagiri gave to his family for them to reciprocate nothing but disrespect, leading him to live an unworthy life. Through a Freudian lens, we can examine the frog as Katigiri’s wish fulfillment. In Freud’s, “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis”, he states, “We humans find reality unsatisfying quite generally, and for that reason entertain a life of phantasy in which we like to make up for the insufficiencies of reality” (Freud 2235). Freud defines wish fulfillment as being displeased from reality causing us to make up our fantasies, as Frog was a part of Katagiri’s fantasy. Wish-fulfillment was needed in Katagiri’s life due to the lack of value and respect in his life, which lead him to the fantasy of Frog appreciating him. He fantasizes about Frog to acknowledge all that he’s done for his family along with the lack of recognition his siblings gave him.
Murakami’s lack of content in his own life played a role in developing Katagiri’s non-fulfillment in society. Murakami faced a tragic earthquake that left him socially separated from his town. In “Writing guilt: Haruki Murakami and the archives of national mourning”, by Jonathan Boulter, he states, “This text clearly, perhaps too clearly, functions as a kind of exorcism of guilt, as is plays out Murakami’s impossible desire to have saved Kobe from disaster” (Boulter 21). Japan faced a terrible earthquake causing various tensions, including Murakami’s feeling of isolation. Murakami ties his own lack of fulfillment to Katagiri as they both have wish-fulfillments that helps them escape their reality. Murakami’s unable to prevent the earthquake which caused him to face many losses that lead him to feel disconnected from society. He carried this burden on his shoulders as he wrote Katagiri’s character unable to feel satisfied with his life. Both Murakami and Katagiri face solitary in their society.
Subsequently, the feeling of being undervalued is shown through Katagiri’s dream-work. Katagiri is unable to connect to society based on the mistreatment from others leading him to replay his harsh reality in his mind. “ The dream-work is a special case of the effects produced by two different mental groupings on each other – that is, of the consequences of mental splitting; and it seems identical in all essentials with the process of distortion which transforms the repressed complexes into symptoms where there is unsuccessful repression.” (Freud 2223). Freud explains that dream work consists of unsuccessful repression that appears as a symptom in a dream. Therefore, Katagiri’s dreams revolve around his real life, the unappreciated family and the mistreatment of outsiders. Katagiri being a debt collector caused many people to hate him and want to harm him, but it doesn’t bother him. He says that if someone were to kill him, society wouldn’t be losing anything; he feels like he would be the perfect man to kill, due to a lack of relationships in his life. Katagiri daydreams, “I was walking along the sidewalk when some guy shot me. Probably in the shoulder. The right one. He relived the scene in his mind. When he remembered the small black gun in the young man’s hand, his heart made a disturbing thump. The sons of bitches were trying to kill me… The nurse flashed a nervous smile in his direction. “I’m sorry, Mr. Katagiri, but you haven’t been shot” (Murakami). Katagiri’s repressions from knowing he is helpless and knowing people are willing to kill him in his society come outs and leads to Katigiri’s hallucination of believing he got shot. Murakami’s critique of one’s helplessness in society is displayed in Katagiri’s daydream of being shot and with a Freudian lens, we can analyze this as the work of the dream-work.
Within feeling helplessness in a society, the three human personalities that play a role are superego, id, and ego. These personalities influence the way we think resulting in our unique behaviors and actions. The superego is our conscience in which determines right and wrong. The id is “the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization” (Freud). Lastly, the ego is what balances the interaction of the superego and id to adapt to what is acceptable in society. Murakami illustrates these three personalities through the connection of the characters: superego through Frog, id through Worm, and Katagiri through ego. Katagiri is the one in control of both Frog and Worm as he decides what is acceptable to him and his society. In, “Super- Frog Save Tokyo”, we see Frog warning Katagiri the madder the Worm gets the more dangerous the earthquake will be. This tension displays the egos because the superego is trying to get the ego to not be influenced by the id because if Katagiri displays his anger the worm(id) will become stronger. Murakami states, “The floor, too, was covered with worms and bugs. They climbed up the lamp and blocked the light, and, of course, they crept onto Katagiri’s bed.” Katagiri imagines the worms invading his room as he became more id-driven. This is a result of Katagiri having a battle in his head between his superego and id, which resulted in the id overpowering the superego and causing Katagiri to imagine the dark part of his mind. In,” Haruki Murakami’s Storytelling World”, by Patricia Welch, it states, “Though his protagonists are ordinary individuals, they can do extraordinary things if they live their lives with meaning… Above all, they must choose to act but also to accept that in some circumstances they might be their own worst enemy”(Welch 59). Regarding the story, Welch defines how the two egos portrayed by Frog and Worm led to Katagiri’s loss of consciousness. Katagiri had two egos within himself fight each other over control, illustrating Katagiri being his own worst enemy. Evidently, the egos contributed to Murakami’s illustration of the hopelessness in society because Katagiri’s helplessness in dealing with these three egos lead to them colliding with each other leading to his downfall.
In the story “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” society contributes to the character Katagiri as it makes him believe he is helpless and unworthy. Viewing this story with a Freudian perspective, identifying the tolls society took on Katagiri left him broken. Katagiri dedicating his life to his loved ones and his efforts went unrecognized with his family’s disrespectful attitude, lead him to develop a wish-fulfillment presented by Frog. The Frog helps Katagiri gain purpose in his life as he exploits his family’s actions and makes Katagiri feel acknowledged. The daydreams he had were a result of this helplessness he felt and it’s what drove him to the confusion of his egos. The egos displayed how society exposed Katagiri to helplessness as he became more id-driven with the worm(id) overpowering the frog(superego). Murakami’s goal of illustrating society as an aspect of life that can leave one helpless, due to the Kobe Earthquake, was achieved through Katagiri in “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”
Reflection
My Critical Research Analysis paper was to analyze an author’s critique of society through one of his writings while drawing upon it with a Freudian Lense. The story I chose was “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”, by Haruki Murakami for many reasons. To start off, this was hands down the most enjoyable story to read from this course. It had many Freudian concepts I could draw upon which were wish-fulfillment, the three human personalities, and dreamwork. These three concepts helped to display Murakami’s critique of society’s loneliness/helplessness which I stated in my thesis. Taking into consideration my rhetorical situation, I felt like I did a good job. Knowing my professors knew the stories and Freudian concepts I tried to be more analytical in this paper than summarizing. My purpose/goal in this essay was to illustrate on Katagiri’s critique of helplessness while not trying to summarize Katagiri’s life. I had many hardships doing this because I felt like on my beginning drafts I was explaining a lot. Also, another task that was hard was flooding my essay with a bunch of information. I felt like it comprised a handful of evidence since I had to contribute Freud in my analysis, due to this I felt I lacked fully connecting my analysis. There were many things I felt I did well and one was my outside resources. Bringing in Maurkami’s life and how he felt after the Kobe Earthquake played a big role in my text. The story was influenced by the Earthquake and Murakami put his real-world feelings into this text. My outside resources revolved around his feelings after the earthquake and I used that to connect with Katagiri and Freud. Reflecting on the CRA it was the most analytic essay we’ve got, but I enjoyed it the most. This assignment helped me better my analytical skills and sum up Freud.
Work Cited
Boulter, Johnathan. Writing guilt: Haruki Murakami and the archives of national mourning. 2006
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lMB9_TJkRopRumu4or9CxhUw9m1Si05E/view
Freud, Sigmund. “Five Lectures on Psycho-analysis.” 1955. PDF file
Freud, Sigmund. “The Id.” PDL file
Murakami, Haruki. “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”. 2012.
https://www.gq.com/story/haruki-murakami-super-frog-saves-tokyo-full-story
Welch, Patricia. Haruki Murakami’s Story Telling World. 2005.
