Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore guises compliance as freedom, in accordance with power structures through an internalised acceptance of their authority and subsequent submission. In this paper I will examine the role of the characters in the text through a Foucauldian framework of power and its production of knowledge. I argue that authority in the novel operates as an epistemic regime that governs subjects by regulating access to knowledge to enforce obedience. Kafka decides to alter the course of his prophesised future under the assumption that his choices are made independently but his knowledge of the prophecy by his father, the authoritative figure, becomes the catalyst for it to transpire, as every step he takes as a supposed act of rebellion against it, inadvertently plays right into its schemes. Kafka’s resistance in running away, and Nakata’s incapability to function like earlier after his memory loss, while developing the skill to talk to cats and foresight for his own future, are both produced by a knowledge system functioning toward achieving its own goals. Kafka decides to fulfil the prophecy of his own accord toward the end of the novel as the knowledge produced from a source of power becomes the internalised truth of people. By analysing Kafka on the Shore as an archetype of epistemic governance, this paper demonstrates how Murakami shows the mechanisms through which people participate in their own regulation. It depicts that freedom is a product of its contextual power structures and the knowledge it produces.

Authors:
Safia Tahmeen, The English and Foreign Languages University, India

About the Presenter(s)
Safia Tahmeen is a doctoral scholar in The English and Foreign Languages University and is pursuing her PhD on the ludic aspects of Haruki Murakami’s fiction. Her research interests include memory studies, trauma studies, and ludic studies.

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