The Tapestry of detachment and nothingness in Haruki Murakami’s work: an experimental interaction between Nihilism and Zen Buddhism

Abstract

The philosophical conflict between religion and Atheism has a significant rise around the modern and contemporary times following the historical inconveniences of constant war, loss and decay of moral ground. This paper focuses on aligning the contradictions through the philosophical perspective of Nihilism and Zen Buddhism through the characters of Eastern writer Haruki Murakami who is known to be focused on Western culture and style than the authenticity of his homeland, Japan. Though the main agenda of the thesis is to critically examine the characters from Murakami’s novels and their relation with Nihilism and Buddhism on a simultaneous and intricate aspect, it also explores supernatural themes which are connected to eastern religion and mythology and been used by the author. The paper analysed the historical, cultural, and political realm of Japan in modern times to analyse the characters traits as contemporary Japanese youth in Murakami’s literary universe addressing the duality of choices and actions being simultaneously presented as escapist and confrontational towards life. Therefore, the thesis is an analytical venture to address and link the ideas of Nihilism and Buddhism and their point in human life through the analysis of Murakami’s literary canon as an experiment of double-edged perspective of human life.