“The elephant and keeper have vanished completely. They will never be coming back.”
“The Elephant Vanishes” by Haruki Murakami was not as complicated as it appeared to be. It is exceedingly intriguing; like a mystery novel in a short story except there is no resolution. Various possible themes have crossed my mind but the only idea sticking is that it is simply a story. Similar to a Dr Seuss children’s book it that contains little to no logic but can still resonate with people.With books I feel like people often lose the luster of a story by always looking for a deeper meaning. Sometimes it is just nice to enjoy the story being presented to you. Now if one really truly wanted to take this to a deeper level, it could be connected to a perspective on life. Perhaps it is meant to represent how life often has no clear explanation and will leave you angry and discontent. To elaborate on that theory maybe it is meant to represent how a person feels when they reflect on the end of their life. How horrible would it be to be at the end of one’s life only to realize the most you “lived” was the same monotonous daily routines, days passing when all you did was stare like the elephant did. But continuing to over-evaluate like this can thrust you into a full blown existential crisis. Going along with that the main characters obsession with the elephant translates to how we can spend our whole lives dedicated to one insignificant thing. Our society today seems to glorify this, and it is very unhealthy. There are multitudes of things we miss out on because we waste our lives focusing on one sole object. Humans need to do more with our lives than what we are doing. We need to break the “norm” and do something more important.