Food, Self, And Expression: How Midori Uses Cooking To Shape Her Identity In Norwegian Wood

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of food as a medium of identity, self-expression, and emotional communication in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, with a specific focus on the character of Midori Kobayashi. Midori’s culinary practices: self-taught, meticulous, and culturally informed: act as a lens through which her autonomy, resilience, and capacity for care are delineated. Drawing on food studies and identity theory, the analysis studies how cooking functions as both a life skill and a symbolic language that conveys emotion, cultural awareness, and relational intimacy. Through detailed textual analysis of key scenes, including her preparation of Kyoto-style meals and her habitual, rhythmic actions in the kitchen, the study shows that Midori’s engagement with food is simultaneously practical, aesthetic, and emotional. It delineates how ordinary acts, such as cooking, can serve as tools for self-definition, which covers the gaps created by trauma, neglect, or emotional detachment. By situating Midori’s culinary practices within the theoretical viewpoint of scholars such as Roland Barthes, Carole Counihan, Sidney Mintz, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, this paper illustrates that food operates as a site of agency and expression. At its heart, the study argues that Murakami positions cooking as a medium through which Midori asserts identity, nurtures intimacy, and transforms everyday life into a meaningful, embodied form of communication.