Who Is The Narrator In A Wild Sheep Chase

Murakami never commits his novel A Wild Sheep Chase to any one interpretation, and he is content with ambiguity. This story contains a combination of themes including coming-of-age, boy meets girl, isolation, obsession, vision quests and even traits of old style hard boiled detective stories. Murakami’s narrator is a heavy smoker and a deep thinker, often using dark dialogue to paint a picture of gloom. We are introduced to the narrator at a point in his life where he is isolated, between divorce and a new girlfriend, and this isolation continues to be a major theme throughout the book. The sheep professor lives in his room above the Dolphin hotel because he is “sheepless”, and feeds his obsession of the sheep behind closed doors. “The Boss”
Murakami’s narrator is static and unemotional in his relationships with his ex-wife, his girlfriend with magical ears and his cat, who is eventually the only character in the novel that is given a name. Towards the end of A Wild Sheep Chase, Murakami’s narrator begins to display emotion by crying for a brief moment and then instantly returning to his static emotionless demeanor, but not until after the weight of the sheep chase has been lifted, and he had lost his girlfriend forever. London’s nameless narrator’s lack of emotional bonding is displayed by his treatment of the dog. Like Murakami’s narrator, London’s narrator does not give the dog a name, “it’s just there” (Murakami, 178). He does not possess a bond with the dog, and risks its life by pushing it on to a frozen creek to test its stability, showing no sympathy for the dog when its fur is instantly frozen. London’s narrator finally displays feelings of envy towards the dog as he “regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering” (jacklondons.net), but not until he is facing death
Thompson. Although Thompson’s novel is based on the idea of finding the American dream, it is also open to many other interpretations such as resistance to authority, blurring reality with fantasy, and journey. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is written in a similar way as A Wild Sheep Chase, using language, setting and cigarettes to create a detective-like atmosphere. Thompson, the narrator of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and his attorney give themselves fake names that they use to check-in to various hotels on the Las Vegas strip. They run up large room-service bills, impersonate cops to attend drug conferences and conduct a report on a dune buggy race under their fake names, while continuously purchasing and ingesting a large array of