63 pages • 2 hours read
Haruki MurakamiThe City and Its Uncertain Walls
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Wall
The wall that surrounds the town in The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a symbol of the divide between reality and unreality. It is a barrier that keeps the world of illusion and reality from mixing and presents a challenge to any and all that seek to pass through it. The wall is made of impenetrable bricks, and at times it even acts as though it were alive, adapting to the changing requirements of defense: “[I]t towered there imbued with its own will, its own unique life force. And the town was completely enveloped in its hands” (306). The line that divides reality and unreality is not fixed, and at times needs to change to keep the two worlds separate. The protagonist struggles with keeping reality and illusion separate, and his interactions with the wall show a constant battle, as it moves and speaks to him, promising to be ever present. M**’s brother explains the wall as a metaphor for individual consciousness: “I think the wall surrounding the town is the consciousness that creates you as a person, Which is why the wall can freely change shape apart from any personal intentions” (379). M**’s brother is a medical student interested in the brain. His perception of the wall is that it changes, without direction, to best adapt to the person. In this sense, the wall shapes itself to keep reality and illusion clearly separate, helping characters better understand the world around them.
Unicorns
The unicorns in the walled-in town serve as a motif reflecting the theme of The Intersection of Reality and Illusion. These beasts are the most fantastical aspect of the town and mark it as a completely separate reality. Their appearance is fictional, with no animals in the protagonist’s reality comparing to them: “[T]he beasts’ bodies were covered with a shiny, golden coat of fur. The single horns in their foreheads were sharp and white” (10). Their golden fur and horns make clear to the protagonist that the walled-in town is an illusory world radically different from his own. However, the unicorns are also the only living beings in the walled-in town to experience the passage of time. While the human inhabitants of the town do not age and live in an eternal present, the beasts experience the change of seasons, die, mate, and are born. They act as a release for the town, living by the rules of reality so the town does not need to: “They take on all kinds of things, and quietly pass away. Probably as a sacrifice for the people here. To create the town, to keep the system going, someone has to take on that role. And those poor creatures are the scapegoats” (88). The unicorns experience time so the town does not need to. Reality and illusion meet in the form of the unicorns, as they experience time as the protagonist would in the real world while taking on the form of a fantastical beast. The contrast in their form and purpose demonstrates the conflict between reality and unreality, reflecting the protagonist’s own struggles throughout the novel.
The Clock With No Hands
In the walled-in town, time operates differently than it does in reality. Though time passes, it has no meaning. The clock with no hands is a motif that reflects this notion of time with no meaning and explores the theme of The Interdependence Time, Memory, and Identity. Throughout The City and Its Uncertain Walls, characters build their identities and evaluate their decisions on the basis of time. In the walled-in town, however, time does not accumulate, giving actions and experiences no meaning. The clock with no hands represents the existence of time, but does not show how it progresses: “As always, the clock had no hands. It wasn’t a clock that told time, but a clock that showed the meaninglessness of time. Time hadn’t come to a halt, but it had lost any significance” (410). The clock shows that time is meaningless, and itself demonstrates how a lack of any passing of time impacts self-perception. A clock with hands shows a different image every second of the day. It captures a moment in time and gives it an identity. At any given moment during the day, the clock with no hands in the town has no identity and does not progress. Characters reflect this in the town by not progressing, instead experiencing the same day over and over again. Self-perception freezes, their days the same blank face as the clock.
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By Haruki Murakami
