"The Little Green Monster"

In this collection of short stories, Haruki Murakami tends to write mostly in first person, which, in my opinion, makes the story more believable, even the stories that are not realistic at all, like "The Little Green Monster." This story opens with a scene of the main character, who was never given a name, sitting in her home looking out to her garden with a large oak tree because she had nothing else to do. Suddenly, she heard a loud, constant rumbling brewing from the roots of the tree. A little green, scaly monster poked its head out of the hole that it formed, and began to make its way to the main character's front door. It was able to figure out how to unlock the door, so it snuck in and finally reached the woman. It professed its love and said that it was going to propose to her. The monster was able to read her mind, so she began to torture it with her great imagination in every possible punishment she could think of. The monster became so upset it turned a deep shade of purple and started to diminish. The woman continued harming it, and it kept shrinking and becoming more invisible. At the end of the story, the monster was nothing more than a shadow on the floor, and the woman felt a sense of accomplishment. Even though this story was only five pages long, it was filled with great detail and description of every aspect of the plot.

I liked the way that Murakami described the monster as it was coming out of the Earth, especially when he said that "the beast's eyes were exactly like a human's" and how they showed the it's feelings. The monster's mannerisms seemed very humanlike as well, such as its ability to knock on the main character's door and unlock it, the smirk smile on its face, and its way of speaking. It also had superhuman qualities, like the ability to read the main character's mind.

I feel as though the little green monster was a metaphor for the main character's life, how it was somehow holding her hostage in her own house. She mentioned that her house was the only one in the area, which implied that she lived in either a rural or a wooded place that suffocated her and didn't allow her to have the freedom that she wished for. When the monster was outside of her house, she felt trapped because she had no way of escaping, which was probably how she felt about her life. She could have been having struggles with her husband, which would be why the monster was introduced as a love interest. When the main character finally caused the monster to disappear, that might have been symbolic to her breaking free from her trapped lifestyle. I think that if the story would have continued, the main character would have stood up to her husband and moved out to the city, fiinally making her life the way she wanted it to be.