Upp och ned, hit och dit : En romananalys av Haruki Murakamis Fågeln som vrider upp världen utifrån Michail Bachtins kronotopteori

Sammanfattning: In this essay Murakami Haruki’s novel The Wind Up Bird Chronicle was analysed from the perspective of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope. The aim was to explore the concept of time and space as presented in the novel. In particular, the analysis focused on how Bakhtin’s chronotopes can be applied to The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, how the chronotopes can enhance our understanding of the novel, and finally how the chronotope theory can be applied to the concept of ‘magic realism’ that is often used to describe Murakami’s authorship. Four chronotopes, presented by Bachtin, were selected and applied to the novel: every-day life, the road, crisis and the castle. The concept of the chronotope allows analysis of how time and space work together in literature and how they form patterns of correlation in the sujet. Results showed that the four chronotopes were found in the novel, and that they also interacted with each other. The chronotope of everyday-life was apparent throughout the novel, and the narrator was under its control. The narrator also seemed to create every-day life out of the chronotopes of the road and crisis by re-living the crises in the road. These three chronotopes seemed inseparable in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Finally, the fourth chronotope, the castle, illustrated how a concrete room in the novel, a house, became a part of time and space through a character who, by his presence, gave the impression of slowing down time. When this character disappeared, time made its way through space, making the chronotope of the castle visible. The essay concludes that the chronotope theory was a relevant way to analyse The Wind Up Chronicle as it provided a concept of how time and space appeared together in a novel where time and space is always present. The analysis helped creating a way of understanding the patterns in the novel, which were not always clear, thereby also increasing the understanding of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle.