Going Down the Well: Wells and Hidden Places in Murakami's Novels

Read enough Haruki Murakami and you start to notice the holes in the ground. Going down the well is one of his most recognizable images: a character descends into a dark, narrow, quiet place, and something shifts. We have been thinking about why he keeps coming back to it, and we want to share our opinion.

The well as a symbol of the inner self

One of our recovered notes puts it simply: in Murakami's work, the well stands for the darkness inside the heart, and it is an entrance to the unconscious. We agree. A well is a vertical tunnel with water or emptiness at the bottom. It is private, it is silent, and it is hard to climb out of. That makes it a perfect stage for a character who needs to be alone with his own thoughts.

The note adds a line we like: every hole has an entrance and an exit, and every exit is an entrance to somewhere else. If you go deep enough into your own heart, you may come out somewhere new.

Wells across the books

The motif goes back to the very start. In Hear the Wind Sing (1979), Murakami's debut, the narrator mentions a story about a well on Mars, a strange, half-remembered detail that sticks in the mind. Wells show up again around Pinball, 1973, and then become central in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-95), where Toru Okada climbs down into a dry well behind an empty house to think, and what happens in that darkness changes the shape of the book.

We also like that the idea has travelled. The 2018 film Burning, based on Murakami's short story "Barn Burning", gives its heroine a well in her childhood story, one that is tied to loneliness and old hurt. The film is Korean, directed by Lee Chang-dong, and it shows how far these images carry.

Killing Commendatore and the pit in the woods

The same instinct returns in Killing Commendatore (2017). The narrator, a portrait painter living in a mountain house, discovers a stone mound in the woods, and when it is opened it reveals a pit. From that moment strange things begin to happen. Once again, the hidden place beneath the ground is where the unreal enters ordinary life.

One of our rough notes also mentions a character in that book whose name was garbled in the draft, and a scene about love so deep a man would destroy a whole forest for it. We can't reconstruct the details with confidence, so we will leave it there. What we can say is that the novel is full of loss and of people who would do extreme things for someone they love.

Our opinion: why it keeps working

We think readers respond to the well because everyone has a place like this, even if it is not literal. A long walk, a long run, a night shift, a quiet record playing. Murakami simply draws it as a hole, and lets us climb down with his character. It also fits his own habit of writing: he descends every day to the same quiet place, then returns. If you want more on that routine, see our post on how Murakami became a novelist.

FAQ

Which Murakami novel has the most famous well?

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, where Toru Okada spends time at the bottom of a dry well.

What does the well symbolize?

Most readers see it as the unconscious, the inner self, and a passage into another layer of reality. It is an interpretation, not an official answer.

Is there a well in Killing Commendatore?

There is a pit hidden under a stone mound in the woods, which plays a similar role as a doorway to something unseen.

Where is your own well, and what do you find at the bottom? We would love to hear from you.