Genre
Fiction; fantasy
Setting and Context
The novel is set in the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Takamatsu in the early 2000s.
Narrator and Point of View
The book is narrated in alternate chapters by Kafka Tamura (in the first-person) and by an unnamed third-person omniscient narrator. The point of view shifts between Kafka and the secondary characters of Nakata and Hoshino.
Tone and Mood
The tone is casual and at times joking; the mood is ominous and surreal.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Kafka Tamura is the protagonist; his primary antagonist is his father, Koichi.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in the novel is that Kafka Tamura is trying to escape the Oedipal curse his father put on him when he declared that Kafka was fated to kill his father, and sleep with his mother and sister.
Climax
The novel reaches its climax when Kafka goes deep into the forest and briefly lives in the limbo village; there he is able to forgive his mother for abandoning him by forgiving the limbo version of Miss Saeki.
Foreshadowing
Hoshino and Nakata arriving at the Komura Memorial Library foreshadows the inevitable convergence of the novel's two plot lines.
Understatement
Allusions
The novel makes repeated allusions to the Greek mythological figure of Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
