"A WILD SHEEP CHASE": UNFOLDING SYMBOLOGIES

Abstract

This article aims to investigate, through symbology, the constituent elements in Haruki Murakami’s A wild sheep chase, in order to understand its meanings and its representativities in the construction of the narrative. The existence of figurative objects and characters as well as the presence of numbers and dates is a justification for choosing the theme. According to Jean Chevalier (2008, p. XII), “symbols are in the center, they are the core of this imaginative bags of action in life. They reveal the secret of the unconscious, lead to the most hidden bags of action, open the spirit to the unknown and the infinite”. Thus, the following questions are presented: Why the Ram? What is the puzzle around the Ram? What are the reflections sought in the work? The theoretical foundation rests on the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche who sees in man a being endowed far beyond reason by opposing the ideas of the Enlightenment: “We disdain everything that can be explained. Some stupidity surprised herself and is now naked before the one who explains it” (NIETZSCHE apud HAASE, 2011, p. 16). In this way, the research raises transcendental reflections about the existential conflicts of the man in the modern and postmodern society.