Haruki Murakami, Japanese author of The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, has many characters who all have influential aspects on the protagonist Toru Okada. But one character in particular, May Kasahara, is a minor character who has a critical effect on the protagonist's development throughout his journey. This enigmatic character is unknown and although she takes part in helping Toru find himself, part of May being the one who helps him, is because she also needed to find herself. Although May Kasahara has a great influence on Toru's life, Toru indirectly has a greater influence on May's life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The first meeting between Toru and May Kasahara was very strange. While Toru was looking for his cat, she arrives and starts asking question after question. During their first meeting, they could not understand each other's names, yet they sat together and waited for Noboru Wataya, the cat, talking as if they had known each other before. Murakami creates this connection between the two characters and from the beginning creates a close bond with the characters in this scene. As they sit, May begins to wander, rambling on about the strangest things; however, the reader may notice that this is a genuine part of his personality as one continues reading the novel, he sincerely talks about many off-topic things at once. Surprisingly, the passive character is Toru, he wasn't bothered by her chatter at all and yet he sat there and listened to this stranger ask him if he would marry a woman with 6 fingers or 4 breasts. From the beginning, readers are introduced to this enigmatic, strange, and strange character that Toru immediately connects with. Murakami does this to foreshadow their relationship in the rest of the novel. Their first meeting was also a very strange meeting. As they sit together, she convinces him to close his eyes as she talks about countless things. However, it was very strange because she felt comfortable with this stranger talking about death, touching him and even whispering in his ear. Why was she whispering in his ear? May had started talking about the feeling of dying and as she does so, she holds Toru's wrist and whispers to him. Apparently she was doing hypnosis on him. She puts her finger on his wrist and draws some symbols. May Kasahara may have been the beginning of Toru's tendency to delve deeper into thinking about situations. When they were sitting together, she told him to keep his eyes closed and listen to her talk. As he talks, he says he thinks about things very deeply. “When you have nothing to do, your thoughts become really distant, so distant that you cannot follow them to the end” (21) What does this mean? This statement is very significant because as Toru goes through his journey, Toru's thoughts become deeper and deeper to the point where he finds himself in a world of magical realism; he never experienced any of this before meeting May Kasahara. May Kasahara is significant because it immediately questions Toru's passive nature and immediately makes him take a turn on his passive nature, immediately starting his journey to find himself. He asks Toru if he has "courage". Before, Toru was a “go with the flow” boy and couldn't remember at any point where he had “courage”. You can see that after talking about “courage and curiosity,” Toru slowly but surely begins to gain courage through his curiosity. “Where there is courage there is curiosity, and where there is curiosity, there is courage” (65) “Curiosity can bring courage out into the open…” (65) Toru says that “it is neverbeen the one with guts" (65) but as his journey progresses, he draws it from his curiosity; curiosity about why Kumiko left him; curiosity about who the real Noboru Wataya is; and gains “courage” by descending into an empty well and being trapped and when he stands up to Noboru Wataya during his meeting, where he tells the story of the "Shit Island". It can be seen that May Kasahara may have indirectly influenced Toru's journey in some way, as such also foreshadows the events of Toru through May Kasahara. What is very significant is that Toru was introduced to the “Well” by May Kasahara. “Tell me, Mr. Windup Bird, would you like to see the Well?” Mr. Honda told him "When you should go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom" (66) Now he had a well if needed, and May Kasahara was the one to provide it. Although May Kasahara has significant influence on the Toru's life, Toru was unaware that he had had a significant influence on May Kasahara's life. Although May Kasahara is a minor character, throughout the novel she experiences her own journey. Through May Kasahara's letters, the reader is able to understand why she did certain things when she was with Toru and what really goes on in her mind. In her letters she explains that she felt like she was trapped in the world of “Mr. Windup Bird” and needed to free herself. That's why she leaves her home and goes to a distant place. When she was at home, readers can see that May Kasahara somehow depended on "Mr. Windup Bird" like when he went into the well and left a note on the kitchen table saying he would return but he never came back She was very upset by it and when she found him in the well she searched for meaning of revenge towards him, because she couldn't wait to see him again. Another encounter is when Toru was hugging Kumiko at her house and May Kasahara saw through the window. When she confronted Toru, she seemed to be jealous or envious of Kumiko; Mr. Windup Bird” was his and he didn’t want to share it with another woman. May further explains in her letters that she would have delusions of being raped by Toru when they were alone at his house and confesses that this is why she trapped him. in the well. While reading the novel, it seemed like they completely ignored the age difference between the two of them, but May Kasahara didn't ignore it and already knew what she was getting into, but she never shared it with him until the letters. Murakami may have done this to create a separate climax in the world of May Kasahara. May Kasahara was going through her own plots and journey and readers were unaware of this until later within the novel; another technique and stylistic concept used by Murakami to show the life and chronicles of May Kasahara. May Kasahara was a very bold girl who was bold and risky at first having this bad girl image, riding on the back of motorcycles, not attending school, abandoning Toru for hours in the Well, but in her letters, it would seem like that was all an act of who she really is and what she really feels, she's actually sentimental and she cares, she's attracted to Toru AND she wants him in her life. Toru and May share this strong bond. They really depend on each other. They guide each other in the way that best suits them. There were times when May needed Toru to talk to and that's why she wrote him those letters; and there were times when Toru needed May, just the feeling of getting away from the harsh life he was dealing with, chasing Kumiko. Toru imagined that May Kasahara told him right from wrong, and they both felt lost in each other. They both depended on each other, from the moment they met, it can be seen that both.