After the Quake Literary Elements

Short story compilation

Japan, Kobe, 1995

Differs depending on the story, taking the perspective of various characters affected both directly and peripherally by the attack.

The tone of the stories follow Murakami's usual introspective prose, taking a deep look at the characters' psychology that is affected by the quake.

There are no real protagonists/antagonists in these stories, only characters we follow.

The major conflict each character in these stories experiences is an inner struggle/emptiness that the earthquake forces them to confront.

Each character in "After the Quake" comes to a realization about the changed nature of their life after the earthquake, whether it is an inner emptiness they had failed to acknowledge before, or a new hope for the future.

The disastrous earthquake that begins each story foreshadows the personal crisis that will befall each character.

"after the quake"- the title itself is a deliberate understatement; Murakami stylized the title with no capital letters, to understate the huge transformations that each character undergoes.

Each of the short stories directly alludes to the real earthquake that devastated Kobe in 1995.

The stories use imagery to describe both the physical and mental devastation that follows the earthquake.

Murakami's characters undergo many paradoxes– they are both lost and found, both confused and perfectly understanding of their situation– perfectly representative of the paradoxical nature of humanity itself.

N/A

The earthquake is equated as both an event of huge physical devastation and one of psychological transformation. Through the characters' eyes, it becomes much more than a natural disaster.

The earthquake is personified as an earth-shattering event that has the potential to shape lives far beyond physical devastation.