Modernism, Capitalism, and the Everyday: A Study of Haruki Murakami’s The Rat Series with Reference to Lefebvre’s Critique of the Everyday

Abstract

In his discussion on everydayness, Ben Highmore cited an example from the life of Sherlock Holmes, who is repulsed by the idea of everyday life but at the same time, the everyday becomes an intellectual space for him, and he seeks the truth within the everyday. Like Sherlock Holmes, everydayness that is contrasted with macro events of a time has become an intellectual space in literary theory and a voice of subversion in literature. This intellectual space, where the mundane becomes profound, is a fascinating area of study. Written against the macro events of his time in Japan, such as the economic bubble and the students’ protests, Haruki Murakami’s fiction tells stories of subversion through the everydayness of his characters who resist the coercion of capitalism into their ordinary sphere. Their subversion is shown through simple acts such as walking away from watching the news, refusing to go to a job or refusing money offered by capitalistic forces. In this paper, I have attempted to study how bourgeois capitalism coerces into the everyday and how the characters of Haruki Murakami’s The Rat Series resist this coercion. This paper will take into account the observations of various theorists on everydayness with special reference to the works of Lefebvre.

Keywords

• capitalism
• consumerism
• everyday
• everydayness