Themas van het boek

Major Themes

Loneliness/Isolation:  A sense of loneliness and isolation pervades the lives of all the main characters, including Toru. The protagonists are isolated from their parents, peers and, at times, each other. Toru rarely interacts with his family, has lost his best friend and even loses his roommate, Midori’s parents are deceased and/or dying (and uninterested in her while alive) and Naoko is sequestered in a remote rural area, having lost her sister and boyfriend. Reiko is severed from her life with her husband and child, as well as her music career. 

Memories: The entire book is a treatise on the power of memories and nostalgia, with Toru reflecting back upon his college days and his young loves. Naoko, too, aware of the power yet vulnerability of memories, begs Toru to keep her memory alive, while memories of Kizuki haunt them both. The book’s atmosphere is also heavily colored by nostalgia for the late 1960s -- in music, history, etc. The powerful memories connected to the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood” are what set Toru’s narrative flashback into motion at the novel’s start. 

Death and Grief: Inexplicable, shocking suicides of young people happen throughout the novel. Notable characters who commit suicide include Naoko, Hatsumi, Kizuki and Naoko’s elder sister, all of whom don’t seem to have any particular reasoning behind their suicides. Midori is also left an orphan due to her parents’ illnesses and deaths. Though Reiko’s family is still alive, she is completely out of touch with them and so she is essentially dead to her husband and daughter, too. Because of the strong presence of death throughout the book, grief also forms a major theme, as each character is left to deal with loss of loved ones in their own ways. Toru in particular comes to learn that the sorrow of loss is not easily moved past.

Symbols

The Woods: Forests and woods serve as a symbol of the confusion, beauty and loneliness of life, in which the characters are sometimes lost and sometimes find peace and comfort. Toru and Naoko take many pleasant woodland walks but she also chooses to hang herself deep in the woods. The translation of the novel’s title is a play-on-words of the idea of “wood.”

1960s Music: The soundtrack to the novel serves as a symbol of the times, and of Toru’s generation of youth growing up during the turbulent 1960s. These young people were struggling to find their place in the world, amidst culture clashes between generations and political factions, and the author’s choices of songs, such as Midori’s folk-group songs and those played by Reiko, reflect this, using the power of familiar music to instantly put the reader in touch with a sense of the times.

Life vs. Death: In being torn between two very different love interests, Toru is also torn between life and death. Troubled, melancholy, dark Naoko could be seen as symbolizing death while light, vivacious, earthy Midori represents life. Toru is drawn to both of them. Ultimately it is unclear which is the winner.

bron: http://www.hyperink.com/Major-Themes-And-Symbolism-In-Norwegian-Wood-By-Haruki-Murakami-b205a5