the second bakery attack notes

7/18/2019 The Second Bakery Attack Notes

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-second-bakery-attack-notes 1/10

The Second Bakery Attack – Notes

1. Summary

2. Characterisation

3. Symbolism

4. Cinematic Image

5. Narrative Technique inc. Voice and Style)

6. Theme

Haruki Murakami’s writing employs a stark and plaintive

style which stands in contrast with the surrealism of his

stories’ plots. His prose is often very basic, which allows the

depth and scope of his ideas room to flourish in the reader’s

imagination.

1. Summary

The Second Bakery Attack opens with a newlywed couple waking

simultaneously in the night in the grip of a ravenous hunger.

They decide to get up and look for food to satisfy this

yearning, whereupon the distinction in their personalities

becomes evident.

The wife is revealed to be a highly motivated individual who

is both determined and resourceful, while the husband is

directionless, distracted and unable to assist in the search for

nourishment. His only significant contribution to the situation

is in remarking that the last time he felt such a hunger was

“the time of the bakery attack”.



It intrigues his wife to discover that he believes he was

cursed for carrying out a minor heist in the search for food and

she insists they attack another bakery in an attempt to “finish

what you left unfinished.”

She leads the way as the couple hold up a McDonalds

(“sometimes you have to compromise”) and is satisfied in the

end as she falls asleep in the car as the sun rises. However,

the husband appears only to be content that he is “alone now”,

suggesting that the compromise in their action failed to effect

real change in their relationship and that they will again wake

up hungry before long.

2. Characterisation

Both characters are left unnamed, which may be intended to imply

the lack of true knowledge they have of each other, despite the

fact that they are married.

The Husband (the narrator):

His first words (“I’m still not sure I made the right

choice”) immediately give the impression that our

narrator’s uncertainty will be his overriding

characteristic.

The Husband withholds the truth where it has the potential

to threaten him and chooses not to divulge information

about his past. (“I hadn't been planning to bring it up -I had forgotten all about it - but it wasn't one of those

now-that-you-mention-it kind of things, either.”)

He makes oblique references to issues within his

relationship but also denies the reader the honesty we

would usually expect from a 1st person narrator. (“we had

yet to establish a precise conjugal understanding with

regard to the rules of dietary behavior. Let alone anythingelse.”)



The narrator is intimidated by his wife and sees her as the

boss in their relationship. (“Whenever my wife expressed

such an opinion (or thesis) back then, it reverberated in

my ears with the authority of a revelation.”) There is alack of equilibrium in their marriage and he tends not to

air his opinions as he is afraid of her derision.

At four points in the story, he describes his feelings

through a dreamlike image of himself in a boat. He has a

tendency to withdraw from stressful situations into his own

thoughts, meaning that he becomes absorbed in himself and

resolves nothing.

The Wife:

She repeatedly rejects her husband’s suggestions and

appears to have little time for his conversation. It

is difficult to see how they have found themselves

married to each other, so disparate are their

personalities.

Her interest in her husband is piqued when he

accidentally mentions the bakery attack. In spite of

her “old-fashioned” attitudes towards such things as

eating out after midnight, at this point she appears

to be intrigued by the concealed, unpredictable side

of him.

The Wife’s control over him is evidently something

which she has developed throughout their relationship

and she appears to see her superiority over him as a

victory. (“Well, you're working now, aren't you?")

The “practiced efficiency of her movements” in

carrying out the second bakery attack suggests that

she is either simply equipped to deal with any

situation she finds herself in, or that she has pulled

off a similar operation in her own secret past...



At the end of the story, The Wife finally falls asleep

and The Husband describes her as feeling “as soft and

as light as a kitten” – ironic given that she has

just taken charge of an armed robbery. It is significant that only The Wife sleeps as this

implies that the contentment they sought to earn is

hers alone and will ultimately not be enough to

satisfy the “special kind of hunger” felt by both

partners at the beginning.

3. Symbolism

Food:

The couple’s hunger which wakes them up simultaneously in

the night represents the lack of substantial love between

them.

Their empty refrigerator suggests that their relationship

has been built on things which will not last.

Comparison between the hunger and “the force of the

tornado in The Wizard of Oz” implies that this craving

will result in a massive upheaval for the couple, albeit

one which may satisfy their desires.

The food stolen in the first attack has been made

personally by the baker who also runs the shop himself and

closes up when he runs out; on the other hand, when the

couple rob McDonalds, they steal from a multinational chain

restaurant and the food is mass-produced and no one person

has invested any care in its manufacture.

The bread from the first bakery attack kept The Husband and

his friend fed for four or five days, whereas twenty of the

thirty Big Macs stolen from McDonalds are left to waste on

the car’s back seat, which hints towards the temporariness

of the satisfaction which they can provide.



The Gun:

(“long and stiff as a dead fish, was a Remington automatic

shotgun.”) Dead fish have symbolic significance in dreams

and are seen to represent life in the unconscious mind.

Given The Husband’s tendency to drift into daydreams, it

is relevant to apply dream symbols to his descriptions of

waking situations. The gun appears to be awakening The

Husband to the reality that his marriage is not working.

Fish also represent attempts to motivate oneself, so it is

possible that he is looking upon this uncomfortable

circumstance as one which he feels he must motivate himself

to avoid in the future.

The blanket that the shotgun is wrapped in is symbolic of

the sleep which could be due to the couple if the attack

successfully reverses the curse (“She handed me the

blanket-wrapped shotgun.”)

Despite the fact that a gun has obviously masculine

symbolic significance, The Husband’s command of it isthreatened by his inability to carry its weight. (“The gun

was so heavy I had to rest the barrel on top of the cash

register, my finger on the trigger.”) However, his wife is

well aware of his lack of manly qualities and simply

requires him to look as if he is in control for the

purposes of carrying out the raid on the McDonalds.

The Sleeping Couple:

The sleeping couple are intended to stand in contrast with

the main characters, both in terms of their restfulness and

the contentment which lets them sleep. This may be due to

their youth (“…a young couple--students, probably”) as

they are not yet shackled to the responsibilities which

come with marriage and adulthood in general. Mostimportantly, the alignment of their heads suggests that



The boat represents The Husband in his contentment to drift

through life without direction, while the undersea volcano

symbolises his wife. She encroaches on his space and menaces him

with expectations. The word choice of “thrusting” creates thesense that she intimidates and even frightens him. He is unsure

how close the volcano is to his boat, which further emphasises

the terror he feels regarding his wife.

2nd:

While she hunted for more fragments of food, I leaned over the

edge of my boat and looked down at the peak of the underwatervolcano. The clarity of the ocean water all around the boat gave

me an unsettled feeling, as if a hollow had opened somewhere

behind my solar plexus--a hermetically sealed cavern that had

neither entrance nor exit.

His wife’s practicality is contrasted with his habit of

daydreaming: she looks for food, while he withdraws into

reverie. Clarity would ordinarily be reassuring but The Husband

is “unsettled” as he is more content when things are

uncertain. He likens this feeling to emptiness, which links with

the hunger he and his wife are feeling. At this moment, he feels

as if he is stuck in an airtight cave with “neither entrance

nor exit”, suggesting that he can only feel free as long as he

is oblivious to his responsibilities.

3rd:

I took another look at my undersea volcano. The water was

clearer than before--much clearer. Unless you looked closely,

you might not even notice it was there. It felt as though the

boat were floating in midair, with absolutely nothing to support

it. I could see every little pebble on the bottom. All I had to

do was reach out and touch them.

The Husband’s image now has him “floating in midair”, which

suggests he feels helpless and that his situation is out of his



control. Pebbles can be seen to represent all living things as

whilst in motion, they can spread ripples across the water,

itself symbolic of life. The Husband is aware that he will not

always be in motion and that the decisions he makes (or fails tomake) will decide how he feels as he finally comes to rest. The

final sentence tells us that despite his reticence, he is at

least conscious of the prospect that he could “reach out” and

bring substantial change to his existence.

4rd:

Alone now, I leaned over the edge of my boat and looked down tothe bottom of the sea. The volcano was gone. The water's calm

surface reflected the blue of the sky. Little waves--like silk

pajamas fluttering in a breeze--lapped against the side of the

boat. There was nothing else.

I stretched out in the bottom of the boat and closed my eyes,

waiting for the rising tide to carry me where I belonged.

Crucially, the narrator’s peace only comes when he is finallyalone and the volcano has disappeared in synchronisation with

his wife falling asleep. Where the hyper-transparent surface of

the water previously exposed the dangers beneath him, it now

points towards the serenity and sense of possibility brought by

a “blue sky” above him. The water, once threatening, is now a

comfort and the “little waves” depict his life as imbued with

activity, albeit gentle and subtle. The waves’ comparison to

“silk pajamas” creates a lazy image of luxury, implying thatwith the threat of his wife’s expectations currently diffused,

he can return once again to his preferred mode of languid

coasting. The story concludes with the narrator lost in his

daydream, “stretched out” (a phrase used earlier to describe

the shotgun) awaiting the “rising tide”. This could either

represent the superior power of nature and his trust in it to

direct him to his rightful place, or a potentially ominous

symbol of pending danger.



5. Narrative Technique inc. Voice and Style)

Murakami’s choice of 1st person narrative is interesting as he

employs the perspective of a character who is unable (or

unwilling) to give an honest account of his thoughts and

feelings. He is an unreliable narrator, in that where one would

ordinarily expect a 1st person narrative to convey the true view

of that character on the events they convey, The Husband shares

little more with us than he does with his wife. His character is

left deliberately vague and he only refers in depth to his

feelings about his marriage in a detached way, using the

recurring cinematic image.

The perpetually distant narrator’s tone of uncertainty is

frustrating to the reader and successfully reflects the

aggravation which his wife would feel towards him.

It is also relevant to point out the use of flashback, as what

appears to be a fairly happy ending is not truly the conclusion

of the story.

“I'm still not sure I made the right choice when I told my wife

about the bakery attack.”

The opening sentence of the story hints that the bakery attack

has not successfully lifted the curse or helped the couple’s

marriage to function better. If it had, surely we would expect

him to be definite that he “made the right choice”.

6. Theme

Destiny:

“I myself have adopted the position that, in fact, we never

choose anything at all. Things happen. Or not.”

The Husband claims to believe it is impossible to directyourself away from the path which is mapped out of ahead of you.



However, this could also simply be an excuse for his inaction

and lack of motivation. This hypothesis seems especially likely

given that, in his own words, he has “adopted the position”

rather than necessarily believing that it is true.

In contrast, his wife believes that one’s destiny can be

shaped, and indeed, that it is also possible for others to shape

it for you. There is a clear sense at various points in the

story that she is even satisfied by the knowledge that she

moulds him: “"Well, you're working now, aren't you?"

Karma:

“...we had this feeling that we had made a terrible mistake.

And somehow, this mistake has just stayed there, unresolved,

casting a dark shadow on our lives.”

The narrator and his erstwhile friend took the baker up on his

deal and benefitted in the short term, but the sense that he has

cursed them has outlasted the temporary satisfaction of the free

bread. Murakami’s implication is that nothing is free insofar

as nothing is without consequence and that our actions towards

others ultimately ricochet back towards us,

Commitment:

“You have to finish what you left unfinished."

Just as she is committed to sourcing food to satisfy their

hunger, she is dedicated to extinguishing her husband’s curse.Where he would be inclined to leave the “heavy, dusty curtain”

hanging over them for the rest of their lives, she becomes

overtaken by the necessity to attempt to lift it immediately.

Of course, one of the fatal flaws in her attempt to lift the

curse is that she takes control, which means that is she and not

her husband who is finishing what he “left unfinished.”

the second bakery attack notes

Documents