Storytelling

Murakami uses frame narratives in several of his pieces to show that stories are not just abstract entertainment that exist only in books. In “Yesterday,” “An Independent Organ,” and “Scheherazade,” stories are living things, almost magical at times, that have a real presence and can affect people profoundly.

“Yesterday” is told in the first-person by Tanimura. Tanimura himself is a rather dull and uninteresting character. The heart of the story is Erika and Kitaru's relationship. Tanimura is friends with Kitaru, and goes out on a date with Erika, but his presence in the narrative is essentially that of an anonymous interviewer who gathers statements from both Erika and Kitaru and puts them together to present the sad story of a childhood love destroyed by fear. It seems that Tanimura's role is that of a simple framing device at first. In the end, however, the present-tense Tanimura...