Sputnik Sweetheart Analysis

The Reality of Characters

The difference between love and desire can be hard to distinguish. Both may elicit the same emotional responses and physical actions, confusing many individuals. But what happens when a desire becomes so strong that a person creates a false world in their head in order to satisfy that desire? Throughout Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, the partially omniscient narrator, simply known as K, creates a new world through metaphors. These mysterious worlds fall on the verge on fiction and non fiction and serve to entertain the idea of a realm in which he may escape his loneliness, and finally experience romantic love. As a result, the seemingly real characters of Sumire, and Miu represent his internal desires, as merely figments of his imagination. Although the narrator portrays his intense desire to love with his characters of Sumire and Miu, his insufficient grasp of identity, paired with his detachment from the real world as shown in his characterization of Sumire reveals the fictitious nature of their characters.

Throughout the book, K’s narration, specifically his own self-reflection and characterization of others, reveals his insufficient grasp of human identity. When reflecting on his own identity, K explains that “I’m always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox” (54). Furthermore, he extrapolates, “. . . how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That’s how I’d grasp a clearer sense of who I am” (55). In his