after the quake

How does Murakami portray women in the collection? What gendered tropes are employed in the stories, and how do the representations of women compare to the representations of the men? Do the depictions of sexuality and gender roles perpetuate stereotypes or challenge them?

The stories take place in contrasting settings, from dense cities to remote mountains, from workspaces to the home, and from early mornings to late at night. What role do these contrasts play in highlighting the characters’ relationships to public and private spaces and to society and themselves?

Most of the stories feature troubled instances of love, be it romantic, filial, religious, platonic, or self. What causes this lack in the characters’ lives? Do they crave love, or do they not even know it is missing? When love is present, what is the foundation of that relationship?

What changes do the characters experience due to the earthquake? How does it alter their perspectives about life and death? How do they cope with loss in their own lives and comprehend personal and collective trauma?

How is childhood or youth represented in the stories? How do the perspectives of the younger characters comment on the pressures of conformity, social conventions, and a sense of belonging in the adult world?

Murakami’s fiction is known for its intertextuality. Consider the collection’s allusions to jazz music, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Devils (The Possessed), Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou, Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” Dostoevsky’s “White Nights,” Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and the Beatles’ “Honey Pie,” among others. What types of stories do these references tell, and how do they relate to the themes in Murakami’s collection?

Certain elements recur in pairs of stories: a missing “something” (“ufo in kushiro” and “landscape with flatiron”), a stone (“all god’s children can dance” and “thailand”), a box (“ufo in kushiro” and “honey pie”), and the name “Super Frog” (“all god’s children can dance” and “super-frog saves tokyo”). Do these common elements suggest that these stories should be read as companion pieces? What common themes do they highlight across each pairing?

What symbolic roles do the natural elements play in the characters’ journeys to self-discovery? Consider the function of wind in “ufo in kushiro,” fire in “landscape with flatiron,” soil in “all god’s children can dance,” and water in “thailand.” How do these elements connect to the natural disaster of the earthquake, the characters’ relationships with nature, and their understanding of their place in the world?