Kafka on the Shore

This chapter begins with the newspaper report of Koichi Tamura’s murder. Kafka’s father was murdered on the night of the 28th, and his body discovered by the housekeeper on the 30th. His chief artistic theme was the human subconscious, particularly expressed through images of the labyrinth.

Kafka realizes immediately that his father was murdered on the same night that he woke up covered in blood, unable to remember the last four hours of his life.

Oshima tells Kafka that things will be very hard for him if he doesn’t go to the police, explain his alibi, and return to “normal” life, because he’s only 15 years old. Kafka says that he feels like none of his choices matter and that everything has been decided in advance.

Oshima reminds Kafka that the crisis he’s facing is an essential motif in Greek tragedy: “Man doesn’t choose fate. Fate chooses man” (199). He continues, explaining that the great irony of Greek tragedies, such as Oedipus Rex, is that the hero, Oedipus, fulfills his destiny as a result of his good qualities, such as courage and honor, rather than his bad qualities.