heaven by mieko kawakami poses such an intricate question about bullying and about human free will. it addresses the complexities of adolescence and the complexities of social (and occasionally physical) cruelty through such a sensitive but unflinching lens that it is physically unnerving.
the main character, a bullied 14 year old boy called “eyes” by his classmates on account of his lazy eye, meets kojima, a bullied 14 year old girl in the same class.
kojima, attempting to find meaning in her suffering, befriends “eyes” (whose name we never learn in the novel) and searches for the reason and purpose behind the bullying. she explains to the protagonist that there’s meaning in “letting it happen”, that there’s meaning in his eye being lazy, and that there is meaning in her dirty appearance (which she does to feel closer to the time she spent poor and with her dad). she poses their experiences at the hands of their classmates as a form of resistance and as something that makes them strong, rather than just a cruelty done to them by others.
her philosophy is essentially that of “everything has meaning”.
on the other hand, “eyes” has an encounter with momose, one of his bullies. momose, however, differs from the others in the sense that he always seems indifferent to the bullying and rarely ever takes the lead when “eyes” is being tormented. during their encounter, the protagonist questions momose as to why they do it and momose simply responds with “because we want to”. it’s a simple enough answer and he details to “eyes” that nothing really has meaning, that people are free to do what they want, and that the concept of doing “good” and “bad” doesn’t matter anyway. they have a lengthy discussion in which a victim confronts a perpetrator and receives answers for his treatment which completely rival the meaning kojima had been searching for through the previous half of the book.
momose details that it’s not because of his lazy eye that he gets bullied, but by a series of coincidences that ultimately led to where they are, with “eyes” being victim and momose’s friend group being perpetrators. not because the protagonist is different but simply because they want to and they can.
momose’s philosophy, however cruel, is that “nothing has meaning”.
the book poses these two opposite philosophies as valid explanations for kojima and the protagonist’s experiences, juxtaposing them as the viewpoint of both victim and perpetrator. while kojima searches for meaning in their suffering, momose offers that there is none. while kojima states that their complacency and kindness is their way of fighting, momose poses that the only way to escape is to do the same thing back.
meanwhile, “eyes” is caught between these two conflicting philosophies, one in which everything has meaning and cruelty has just as much weight as kindness, and another in which neither kindness nor cruelty have any meaning and we are simply choosing to do what we want, when we want to. both, however cruel or not they may seem, are valid explanations. neither is discredited and neither is posed as the correct answer.
the novel poses these philosophies really startlingly. reading momose’s conversation with “eyes” after watching kojima (and the protagonist) struggle to find solace in meaning, is both jarring and somehow sensible. that’s not to say momose is right, nor to say that kojima is. the novel simply poses these two philosophies as equally factual and equally realistic.
do bad things happen to good people because it means something or are we simply at the mercy of our own whims and the whims of others? does doing good have meaning? does doing bad have meaning? or is everything, the cruel and the kind, equally as inconsequential? is kojima right because she believes in a greater meaning for their experiences or is momose right in his belief that because nothing matters, people are free to do whatever they want, including “eyes” and kojima?
both are equally as valid in the story, carrying a similar weight with the protagonist. it’s a really heartbreaking look at bullying from both perspectives, without a real acknowledgement of which philosophy is right and which is wrong. while the actions may be right and wrong, there is no right way to think about them except through our own personal interpretations.
it makes the ending of the book, in which “eyes” has a surgery done to fix his lazy eye, against kojima’s (who insists that him being the way he is has meaning and suffered a mental breakdown at the climax of the story) adamant protests, all the more meaningful.
upon losing kojima as a friend and suffering a traumatic experience—upon the ending of his first real friendship and his seemingly single point of “real” human connection (if that sort of trauma bond can be considered so)—he removes the bandage from his eyes and marvels at the beauty of the world, now containing depth.
“everything i could see was beautiful. i cried and cried, standing there, surrounded by that beauty, even though i wasn’t standing anywhere. i could hear the sound of my own tears. everything was beautiful. not that there was anyone to share it with, anyone to tell. just the beauty.”
he is freed from the thing he once considered a shackle and is now indifferent to for the first time, but never acknowledges the good or the bad. he is alone, standing in the street, seeing the beauty of the world. without a friend, without peers, without anyone. there’s no right or wrong. there’s no good or bad. just the beauty.
i will never EVER stop thinking about the quote ”everything was beautiful. not that there was anyone to share it with, anyone to tell. just the beauty.” it will haunt me until i die. it will live in my bones and my blood and my being until i am dust.
