The Oriental “Metamorphosis”——Comparison between Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase and Kafka's The Metamorphosis

As the master of western modernism novel, Franz Kafka had a great influence on Haruki Murakami, and many evidence can be found for the relation between them. Being the last one of the “Nezumi” trilogy, A Wild Sheep Chase describes the deatho “Nezumi” whose body was seized by the “sheep”. This work which contains many magic unrealistic plots has influent relationship with Kafka's The Metamorphosis. They are playing the same tune on different instruments. While in The Metamorphosis, Kafka showed us the “catabolism” of the Western coming from the modern alien power, A Wild Sheep Chase depicts the Japanese's own ruin under the incursive alien power by a similar story pattern. It can be called the Oriental “Metamorphosis” no matter on the story pattern or the connotation.