Kafka on the Shore Characters & Character Analysis

Kafka on the Shore Characters

Kafka Tamura

Kafka Tamura - Kafka is an fake name - is one of the two main characters in the novel. Half the chapters follow him in his quest of self that takes him from Tokyo to Takamatsu to Kochi.

When Kafka was young, his mother left the family, taking his sister with her. Kafka's emotionally abusive father prophesied not long after that Kafka would kill him and sleep with his mother and sister. On his fifteenth birthday, Kafka boards a bus for Shikoku. On his way south, he meets the talkative young hairdresser Sakura. Kafka settles in Takamatsu, and spends his days reading in the quaint Komura Library, owned by the beautiful Ms. Saeki and attended by Oshima, a friendly, esoteric transsexual. All is well until Kafka blacks out one day and wakes covered in blood. Confused, he goes to Sakura, who takes him in and sexually pleasures him. Kafka wonders...
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