Dancing with Shadows: Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance in terms of its ontological concern with the postmodern condition. The authors attempt to shed light on the modality of Murakami's critique of capitalism in its latest phase (Japan as an "advanced capitalist society"). Focusing on the potent symbolism of the title running through the novel, it is argued that Murakami presents characters who are paradigmatically "dancing with shadows", the shadows of a postmodern simulacral world. Even the idea of redemption through love turns out to be an illusion in this world, one whose messiah (the Sheep Man) can only offer passivity ("wait and see"). The authors expatiate on Murakami's uncanny deployment of parody to demonstrate how the ideology of capitalism makes people "dance" with the incessant, ubiquitous, vertiginous flow of images/phantoms of capitalism.