man


The Sheep Man

SheepChaseCover   DanceDanceDanceCover

Character: The Sheep Man

Source Text: Murakami, Haruki. A Wild Sheep Chase. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1989. Print.

Entry Author: Mike Steigman

A WILD SHEEP CHASE

The Sheep Man is believed to be part sheep and part human, he appears out of the blue as an apparition to the main character searching for his friend in the mountains north of the Junitaki township. Interestingly, his mixed identity is quite literally all he has to his name. The “sheep” in “Sheep Man” comes before “man” insinuating he is more animal-like than human. Upon his entrance, Murakami states, “The Sheep Man wore a full sheepskin pulled over his head. The arms and legs were fake and patched on, but his stocky body fit the costume perfectly. The hood was also fake, but the two horned that curled from his crown were absolutely real (251).

He loses his temper with the main character after being questioned too much, but quickly regains his composure. The sheep man then apologizes to the main character because “sometimes it’s like the sheep in him and the human in him are at odds so he gets like that” (254).

He speaks human language, yet all of his sentences in the narrative are void of any spaces or capitalization, so it’s difficult to distinguish one word from another. One can say his words sound like animal noises in this sense. His basic qualities are reminiscent of a Neanderthal. He is attentive to polite behavior, yet flees at the first sign of violence, even metaphorical like when the protagonist raises his voice. The main character goes further to say, “The sheep man was just like an animal. Approach him and he’d retreat, move away and he’d come closer. As long as I wasn’t going anywhere, there was no hurry” (254). By being part-animal, the Sheep Man is unable to form any emotional ties with the protagonist, therefore further isolating both the main character as well as himself.

Murakami deliberately chooses to blend this man with a sheep in order to extract some of his humanity and highlight his weaknesses. The Sheep Man reveals the reason he hides out in the wilderness is because he didn’t want to go off to war, because members of the Junitaki Township went off to fight in the Russo-Japanese war. He claims he didn’t know who he would be fighting, he just knows he didn’t want to go. And “that’s why he’s a sheep.”

However, there’s a distinct binary evident in partially being a sheep. Sheep are herded by one person, with all their choices made for them by the shepherd. Once divided from the flock, a sheep is left with little direction. Animals are also typically perceived as strong, unstable, wild creatures. Centaurs and lycanthropes, part human and part animal, are mystical creatures, wise and fierce beyond human capabilities. Murakami plays with this notion while simultaneously categorizing, in his name, a mixed-race/species character, arguing that a double identity can weaken one’s abilities just as it can fortify them.

Lastly, The Sheep Man tells the protagonist, who had originally traveled to the Junitaki Township with his girlfriend had forced her to return to the Dolphin Hotel. He assures the protagonist that she didn’t want to be there and she doesn’t belong. The Sheep Man disappears as quickly as he entered in the novel, without explanation.

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE

The Sheep Man reappears in this novel, along with the main character. His mask has become grungy, his horns dilapidated, and he looks significantly older. This time, the Sheep Man appears where he had supposedly sent the main character’s girlfriend in A Wild Sheep Chase, the Dolphin Hotel. The main character presses a button in the elevator, and suddenly it opens its doors on a floor, pitch-black. The elevator refuses to move, so the main character exits to the floor and finds The Sheep Man sitting behind a desk. The Sheep Man speaks in the second person, constantly asking the narrator to tell “us” what’s going on outside as “we” want to know.

The Sheep Man’s costume appears more dingy than “last time”, his stature shorter and his breathing heavier. He advises the main character that he has to dance and keep on dancing, that is the only way to not lose direction.

Toward the end of the novel, the main character visits The Sheep Man together with Yumiyoshi, his girlfriend, but The Sheep Man has vanished. Reminiscent of A Wild Sheep Chase, The Sheep Man appears unable to exist alongside a partner of the protagonist. All that remains are clippings and yellowing pages about sheep that The Sheep Man had been guarding. They are now abandoned with no one to care for them. Having lived away from war and civilization, The Sheep Man grows older and older until he disappears into irrelevance, with any hope of peace from future wars disappearing along with him.


Caliban

 

CalibanCharacter:  Caliban

Source Text:  Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” William Shakespeare: Collected Works. Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. London: Wordsworth Editions, 1996. 1135-1159.

Entry Author:  Alexandra Katechis

 

Caliban of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-1611) is the half human and half beast native to the island upon Prospero and his daughter have adopted. This poem strives to emphasize the ambiguity of Caliban’s parentage. The poem also explores the many forms he might appear as (man, beast, animal, devil). The point of view will be first person, so that the speaker can draw the reader into the pain of being reviled and enslaved as a result of physical difference and suspected inferiority. Additionally, this poem attempts to emphasize the struggle between Caliban’s inner humanity and outer bestiality. Caliban’s aggressive voice is evoked in order to fully flesh out this sense of injustice which is so central to his humanness.

 

Caliban

Acerbic article of Algiers, I am the son of Sycorax, antithesis of Ariel, and yet

Brother. What family has not forsaken me, banished and abandoned me in basest beastly

Condition, which does cull cruelty from civility. When did censure reach such consensus?

Duke of Milan, Prospero, doest thou attend me? Thy crippled devil did befriend thee. This

Eden I ennobled onto you, you, who conducts the eulogy of my only claim to the

Flesh of this Earth. Foiled by my own manhood, which did enflame thy eyes before fruition:

Godless, ghastly love for Miranda, o gracious nonpareil, who gave me voice to groan,

Howl, hatch into this hostile realm. What hellfire has my humanity bought? Master,

Imposter, sinuous ivy of incantation and vile thought, ignominy of my inheritance, my isle.

Jealousy betrays this jape of justice, which does lengthen my jailor’s sentence of solitude.

King and keeper of my soul, strengthen the knot of thy goddess who does tempt me. Thy

Leal servant licks at lust and knows no limit to its loathsome breath which you have lent me:

Mooncalf monster, cry out the wicked; only good men mark my root in our maker’s mind. A

Naked native truth to which I am nailed, bound nose to navel by a plague of nymphs. The

Orphan obeys, instrument of this diabolical orchestra of occult hymns. And so

Perdition is my immortality, part served on this pelagic stage, the rest in pandemonium’s pit.

Quiet quivers of mine own heart do sometimes feign forgiveness, quintessence of thy fool’s wit.

Reason can no longer rebuke the rabid refrain of my repugnance, reborn the same in every

Strain of this savage’s story. Spirit, sprite, and simplest man: subject to the sorcerer of quill,

Trick and thrill, the madman’s slight of hand. Sing out my threnody, tale of a tyrannical torment.

Ugly underworld, ubiquitous cacophony, and my prison, molded from past paradise by the

Villain who knows naught else but to rule and part. I am the victim of the minister of fate

Whose rapture is my worldly woe, whose rejoice is bitterest curse and weakest foe.

Exculpate me, or else scorn this half-worn existence as do all others who drink his poison ink.

Yesterday’s heart can no more be broken. I have no other.

Zealotry has no parallel, no pardon.