Explication Essay

Assignment: Explicate Haruki Murakami’s “The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” only .

the below link is the website for the combination novel of Haruki Murakami’s(there are different short story in this website make sure you did what im looking for ).its call "Tuesday’s Wind-Up Bird and Six Fingers and Four Breasts"in the below link .#1 only

http://harvey.binghamton.edu/~lng5/haruki%20muraka…

Purpose:To break down and closely analyze a piece of work

Requirements: at least 500 wds, a double-spaced typed page, and only your analysis! No outside research

except the short story. Make sure to add a creative title. This is your work so please make it stand out!

Topic: Choose any section from Haruki Murakami’s “The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” to

explicate.

**Please copy and paste the section of the story in the beginning of the essay (no more than six sentences)

so I know which section you are explicating from the story.

SAMPLE EXPLICATION

“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bare-headed, was assembled n front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes” (Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter 53).

Student Response:

This is the opening paragraph of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, from a chapter entitled “The Prison-Door.” It portrays the crowd gathered in front of the prison door as they await the appearance of Hester Prynne, her baby, and her scarlet “A.” The groups is described as a “throng,” which suggests that not just a random collection of people, but a densely packed, almost mob-like group. The mood set by their “sad-colored” (which suggests black or gray, perhaps) garments, gray hats, and hoods is a sombre one – this is clearly not a pleasant gathering. Also interesting is the description of the men’s hats as “steeple-crowned,” suggesting that even the lay people in this town are associated with the church that has punished Hester. And this seems to be a faceless group of people – the description of merely their clothing and headwear, along with the fact that there are women unnoticeably “intermixed” with men, implies a lack of individuality present here. The use of the passive voice in “was assembled” further suggests this lack of individuality – rather than actively judge for themselves, they passively move as a crowd. Finally, the prison, too, is a sombre place, evidenced by its uninviting door. The appearance of heavy dark, woodplanks (timbered) and iron spikes is a dreary one, but the door also repels the sense of touch with its sharp and splintery surface.

The passage is especially significant because of its placement at the very beginning of the novel. It’s interesting that Hawthorne chooses to begin with this scene of the crowd at the prison door as opposed to, say, the image of Hester standing before the townspeople on the scaffold (which we get in the next chapter). Opening in this way suggests a general theme that we see throughout: the novel is not only about the sin and punishment of a single women, but about the way that the townspeople themselves perceive, judge, and stigmatize Hester for her sin. But the sense of a faceless, mass crowd also continues throughout the story – rumors about Hester and Pearl get spread, judgments get made, but no individual comes forward to take responsibility. Most importantly, I think, beginning this novel this way allows Hawthorne to place us, the readers, almost in this anonymous crowd, waiting to see who or what might emerge from the menacing prison door.