The Ice Man
The Isolated Iceburg “The Ice Man”, by Haruki Murakami, is the story of a 20 year old Japanese woman who falls deeply in love with an Ice Man. Everyone seems to avoid the Ice Man, but the woman is strangely attracted to him. The woman and the Ice Man begin to date, and eventually get married. The woman's family and friends are so ashamed of the marriage that they stop talking to the woman completely. Although she does love him, the woman begins to grow bored of the repetition and isolation the Ice Man has brought her. She decides they should go to the South Pole for vacation, because she believes the Ice Man will enjoy it there. When they reach the South Pole the woman becomes even more isolated than she was in Japan. She also gets pregnant with the Ice Man's child, and they never leave. Haruki Murakami analyzes the consequences of marrying someone form a different class and ethnicity in Japan's endogamous society. The woman is infatuated with the Ice Man, even though no one approves of him. The woman gives up everything because of her love for the Ice Man. The Ice Man is looked down upon, as if he was “a ghost or somebody with a contagious disease.”(Ann Charters, 967) Because of Japan's insularity, the Ice Man is completely alienated. The Ice Man is a forbidden love for the woman, and she abandons everything to be with him. According to the social norms, the woman should have married someone within her same race and social status. No one ever “really accepted [Ice Man], and so they never really accepted that [the woman] was married to him.”(Ann Charters, 970) The woman broke social norms by marrying the Ice Man, and becomes severed from society because of it. The Ice Man is of a different ethnicity and class than the woman, which is why the society frowns upon the marriage. The climax of the story is the trip to the South Pole. The woman decides to go to the South Pole because she believes that the Ice Man will be accepted there. The