After reading The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, it is apparent that the main character Tsukuru is experiencing difficulties of discovering his identity because of a horrific event that occurred in the past. During this internal journey, he goes through various coming of age moments, encounters problems facing reality, and perceives his personality in a negative light. A more efficient method to grasp the concept of different perceptions about identity is to compare and contrast Tsukuru’s identity characteristics to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. This theory, in addition to situational evidence from the story, will provide a more understandable “basis of personal identity and interpersonal relations” (Hurst 278).
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Unfortunately, he was still holding on to a situation in which he was unaware, allowing a delusional state to occur in his mind. Tsukuru found another friend named Haida, in which they participate in swimming activities and other adventurous activities. Because of this, Tsukuru believed that there was a great possibility for them to attempt to form a camaraderie. During the time period of their friendship, there were several scenes in the book when Tsukuru is having sensual dreams about black and white entities, which was interpreted as Kuro and Shiro. Once he dreamed he was inside Shiro, the two girls disappeared, and Tsukuru was inside Haida instead. He jumped out of his bed only to discover that everything was in the same way as before, and that Haida was completely unaware of this situation. However, Haida left Tsukuru eight months after they met each other with no explanation. This situation was similar to the one he obtained previously with Ao, Aka, Shiro, and Kuro, leaving him in a vulnerable and delusional state of mind. This scene correlates to the Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. He claims that “the fundamental fantasy forms the core of a person’s identity and … the basis of the real self” (Hurst 278). The readers could infer that the reason why Tsukuru developed these dreams that could have been the reason of why the relationship with his former friends fell apart. Also, the readers could have possibly concluded that Tsukuru was a homosexual. Being that this dream contained multiple holes that needed to be filled, it was apparent that Tsukuru nor the readers were going to unravel the message of this dream or grasp an efficient understanding of Tsukuru’s identity. Hurst declares the basis of separating the fantasy from the reality of one’s identity is “to get an accurate construction of events…through widespread (ideally