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RESEARCH ARTICLE
ARTICLE
Vol. 7. Issue.4. 2020 (Oct-Dec)

THE SOCIETAL OBSESSION OF NORMALCY: AN EXHILARATING STUDY OF SAYAKA

MURATA’S CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN
ANUPAMA HOSURI
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Studies in English
Karnatak University, Dharwad- 580003, Karnataka- State
Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The human society is a composite whole of the individuals with different
personality. Each community has its own set of rules, ideologies and presumptions,
according to which the individuals of that particular society forms their own ways
of thinking and acting. If one’s thinking and acting is deemed logical as per the
social norms, he is termed as a normal person. But, if an individual has a different
way of thinking or acting, people of the society finds it hard to understand or
accept that individual. The whole society is so obsessed with the thought of
Article information
Received:14/10/2020 normalcy, that it wants to cure the individuals, who reacts to the situations in their
Accepted: 30/11/2020 own different ways rather than following the social norms. Sayaka Murata’s
Published online:05/12/2020
Convenience Store Woman is a quirky, intoxicating, exhilarating and hilarious
doi: 10.33329/ijelr.7.4.153
novel. Through the comical narration, Murata conveys the predominant message-
Thrust thyself and fight for your own happiness. A happy and a healthy society is
formed by its happy and healthy individuals. Convenience Store Woman is a
capturing story of a female protagonist, who has a different way of reacting to
situations with removed logic rather than by following social norms or by feeling
human empathy. Convenience Store Woman has a feministic perspective, where
the leading protagonist at last stops compromising her happiness in order to fit in
the society. She finally realizes her happiness and lives the life on her terms and
conditions. The indifference of the so-called normal people against the differently
abled person is narrated in an exhilarating yet heartfelt way, which strikes its
reader with its powerful message.

Keywords: Quirky, Convenience Store, Exhilarating, Feminism, Empathy, Intuition,

Psychiatrist.

Sayaka Murata is a contemporary Japanese writer. She is born in 1979 in Japan. Her first
novel, Jyunyū (Breastfeeding) won the 2003 ‘Gunzo Prize for New Writers.’ Her tenth novel, Konbini ningen
(Convenience Store Woman) was first published in 2016 in Japan and later in 2018 Ginny Tapley Takemori
translated it into the English language. Convenience Store Woman is Murata’s first ever book to get translated
into English. Murata spent eighteen years working part-time in the convenience stores. Hence, this book is
born out of her experiences. It won the prestigious ‘Akutagawa Prize’ and she was named one of Vogue
Japan's Women of the Year. Convenience Store Woman has sold more than a million copies in Japan alone and
is being translated into twenty-three languages worldwide. It is said that the literature is the mirror of the

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society, and Convenience Store Woman is a novel that is hilarious yet hopeless, heavily loaded with sharp
criticism towards Japanese society. Murata's writings explore the different consequences of nonconformity in
the society for men and women, particularly with regard to gender roles, parenthood, and sex.

In an interview “‘Normal’—What? : In Conversation with Sayaka Murata”. Author of Convenience Store

Woman in Toronto, Murata expressed about her surprise for Convenience Store Woman to be read worldwide.
It has gathered high appreciations although she thought it was stylistically minimal and very Japanese. Murata
expresses her views on Japanese society in the interview:

I feel that it’s different. I truly think that Japan is very behind. . . .I visited England and heard that there
is an overall understanding towards LGBTQ+ community, but people who don’t have partners are
severely criticized. In Japan, I don’t think we are even at that phase. . . . . I think the fact that these
problems are coming into light and people are vocal about their anger towards issues is an
improvement, thinking that these issues have been hidden and not spoken. However, the situation we
have is terrible (Sugawara 22nd March 2019).

Murata was asked that there are many people in Japan who don’t question the societal norms, and
gender roles. To which she replied that she truly wish society to change. She says, “In Japan, movements like
#MeToo is called out to be “fake feminism” and gets bashed on with misogynistic words, and the fundamental
message is not being spread. …and there are so many issues that I feel a strong indignation towards…”
(Sugawara 22nd March 2019).

Through Convenience Store Woman Murata projects the shortcomings of the Japanese society by
narrating the story of a thirty-six year old unmarried woman, Keiko Furukuru. She is a part-timer worker in a
convenience store. A middle age unmarried woman working a part-time job seems strange to the society.
Because it has its own untold laws firmly engraved in the minds of the people. Generally, women or men are
expected to get married at the right age, which differs from the society to society. In Convenience Store
Woman, the author mentions one exception to this so-called societal law and that is if a woman is highly
qualified and earning a handsome salary, she is subjected to get some concession from the society. The people
will make their own typical guesses about the unmarried highly paid woman, and the foremost among them
are she might be busy in her career or she is unable to get her perfect match.

Hence, it is clear as to why the people consider Keiko as a foreign object. She is on the verge of crossing
the marriageable age as per the societal rules. And she has to take quick action to avoid the disaster befalling
her i.e. she should get married. Keiko has attended University, but she is still working as a part-timer in a
convenience store for a low wages. She would have been treated less harshly if she would have atleast got a
job, which pays her well. Keiko is neither married nor owns a well-paid job so she is criticized two times more
by the society.

Keiko is a little different from what we call a normal individual as per the societal rules. From the very
young age children develop their ways of acting in the society, which has conformity with the society. After
certain age most of the acts carried out by any individual is based on his/her own intelligence, emotions or
feelings. Keiko is different because her instinct of acting in the society is different, strange or the best word we
can use here is quirky. The people think of Keiko as an abnormal.

Keiko grew up in a loving family in suburban Japan. He father was a clerk and her mother was a home-
maker and she had a younger sister Mami. Keiko recalls her childhood days. The first incident she remembers
is when she was in a nursery. Her mother took her to the garden where they found a dead bird. All the children
in the garden were upset and crying. Keiko on the other hand insisted that they take the dead bird home and
cook dinner out of it. Her mother got shocked and tried to persuade her that it is a sad event that the bird
died. All the children buried that dead bird. Keiko was confused as to why they were murdering the flowers to
decorate the dead bird’s grave it was out of her perception.

The second incident she remembers occurred in the primary school. A fight was broke out between two
boys and some children were screaming and shouting for them to stop. Keiko followed her instinct and

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thought to stop the boys by hitting one of them on his head with a spade. Keiko’s teachers concluded that she
comes from a violent family and her violent behavior is the result of the violence she had witnessed at her
home. They tried to persuade Keiko to tell them that their conclusion about her family is true, but its exact
opposite of it. Keiko came from a loving family.

The third incident she remembers is around the same time the second incident happened. Once at her
school one of the teachers got hysterical in the middle of the class room and stated shouting at the students.
All the students got frightened and pleaded the teacher to stop. Keiko pulled her teacher’s skirt down. The
teacher immediately became quite and started crying. Later, Keiko mentioned that she had watched
something like that on the television and everybody in the class were crying and pleading the teacher to calm
down so she tried to help. Her mother was informed about it and she was disheartened. Keiko saw her mother
getting upset although she did not know what she did was wrong but she understood her actions are upsetting
her mother. Hence, she decided to stop acting according to her thinking or perception. She minimized her act
of speech and only talked back in the times of necessity. She stopped following her instincts.

Keiko’s parents were asked by her teachers to consult a psychiatrist. Her parents taught that she should
get cured or else she would be unfit to survive in the world. A psychiatrist was consulted, but the tests proved
her to be normal. Hence, it all came back to the conclusion that may be she comes from a dysfunctional family.
The psychiatrist advised her parents to show her more love and attention and she will be cured eventually.

After Keiko was done with the schooling, she moved to the city to study in the university. She came
across the advertisement regarding the requirement of the part-time workers for the new convenience store
called ‘The Smile Mart’ in 1998. She attended the interview, got selected and did extremely well in the training
period of her job. She felt, “At that movement, for the first time ever, I felt I’d become a part in the machine of
society. I’ve been reborn, I thought. That day, I actually became a normal cog in society” (Murata 19-20).

She experienced clarity of mind in the controlled environment of the convenience store which she
lacked in the actual real world. Because this job came with the manual, which described how to act in all types
of circumstance emerged in the convenience store. Her parents were extremely happy by her progress of
getting a job. For them it meant her first step in becoming a part of the society and getting cured. But as time
passed she was not showing any signs of getting out of her part-time job and getting a serious job. Due to her
parent’s insistence she tried to apply for new jobs in her 20s and attended interviews. She was rejected
because she did not have any experience apart from working at the convenience store. Now at present i.e. in
2016, she has completed full eighteen years of her service in ‘The Smile Mart.’

In the eighteen years a lot had changed in the convenience store except Keiko. ‘The Smile Mart’ is
currently managed by the 8th Manager, all the workers of the store who joined along with Keiko have left.
Keiko is working with Mrs. Izumi, who is a housewife and a year older than Keiko and Sugawara, who is a
young singer and some other part-timers.

Keiko’s mundane activities and her diet, exercise and habits were in accordance with the working
demand of the convenience store. She consumes her breakfast, lunch, dinner and mineral water from ‘The
Smile Mart’s’ products. Hence, one can see that Keiko’s world revolves around convenience store or her whole
world is the convenience store. She says, “…. When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this
store, I feel like I’m as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine” (Murata 22).

Keiko copies Manager #8’s, Mrs. Izumi’s and Ms. Sugawara’s behavior, speaking style as well as the
dressing style. She tells that she is made up of all these people. She says:

My speech is especially infected by everyone around me and is currently a mix of that of Mrs. Izumi and
Sugawara. I think the same goes for most people…. And I probably infect others with the way I speak
too. Infecting each other like this is how we maintain ourselves as human is what I think (Murata 25-
26).

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The entry of a new employee in ‘The Smile Mart’ causes a lot of distress in it. His name is Shiraha, he is
thirty-five years old. His intension to do this job is to seek a potential wife. He is obnoxious, misogynist and
lacked respect for the job. Eventually he gets fired because he was caught flirting with the customers. He had a
very strong opinion that the modern society is identical to the Stone Age. All the talks of individuality, freedom
and progressiveness about the modern world is an illusion. He says:

And so I realized. This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled:
men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and
individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in can expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately
banished from the village (Murata 89-90).

The societal rules of right and wrong or its prejudices never changed because even though they are
invisible they are deeply engrained in the minds of the people. The likes of him are always tortured by the
society in the cruelest way possible. In his opinion the people poked their dirty nose in his private affair, just
because he is not well-educated, lacks a decent job, homeless and is still single at the age of thirty-five.

Keiko in order to avoid the annoying questions about her job and marriage asked by the people had
come up with certain excuses suggested by her sister Mami. Mami had told her to tell the people that she had
chronic disease, which made her weak to pursue a normal full-time job. A part-time job will allow her some
free time and she can also visit her old parents often to take care of them. If someone asks about her love life
and marriage, she was instructed by Mami to say that she had been in love once, but she was a poor judge of
men’s character.

But, these excuses did not prove to be good enough. Keiko attended a barbeque party of her friend
Miho. One of them pointed out that if she is weak then she should not be working in a convenience store at all,
because it is difficult to stand throughout the day and shout for the customer’s attention. They all suggested
Keiko to get married as soon as possible and to upload her profile in the matrimonial websites. They also
assumed that Keiko must have been miserable being single and leading a sexless life. But, contrary to their
belief Keiko had never experienced such loneliness. She thinks, “I’d never experienced sex, and I’d never even
had any particular awareness of my own sexuality. I was indifferent to the whole thing and had never really
given it any thought. And here was everyone taking it for granted that I must be miserable when I wasn’t”
(Murata 37).

A thought crosses Keiko’s mind that, “The normal world has no room for exceptions and always
eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of” (Murata 80). She began to think that getting
married is good idea if she wanted to be considered as normal and keep working in the convenience store.

Keiko comes across Shiraha and gets to know that he is currently homeless. He starts rambling about
how the modern society resembles the Stone Age. Keiko offers him a place to stay in her home. She also
suggests him the marriage of convenience. She reasons with him that if he thinks that getting married can
solve all his problems and stop the people from interfering in his life, then the marriage is the perfect solution.
After much initial resistance and making the demonstration that this marriage of convenience will help Keiko
more that it will help him, he agrees to it. He has his own conditions to get married. He wants Keiko to hide
him from the world. She will not speak about their relationship infront of ‘The Smile Mart’ workers and she will
feed him regularly. Shiraha starts staying in Keiko’s house, to be precise in her bathroom. She feeds him
regularly with the food she bought from the convenience store. She felt that she is rearing a dog and had to
feed him on time to avoid him getting irritated.

Keiko tells her sister that she has a man in her home. Mami jumps to the conclusion that her sister is
getting cured. She gets extremely excited and wants to know everything about Keiko’s relationship with
Shiraha. The same excitement was seen when Keiko mentioned Shiraha infront of her friends. They did not
even let Keiko disclose the true nature of her relationship with Shiraha. Mami visited Keiko one fine day and
Keiko told her the truth that having Shiraha for her is like having a dog. Mami gets hysterical and starts crying.
She says:

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Ever since you stated working at the convenience store, you’ve gotten weirder and weirder. The way
you talk, the way you yell out at home as if you were still in the store, and even your facial
expressions are weird. I’m begging you. Please try to be normal (Murata 131).

As soon as Keiko’s co-workers know about Shiraha’s stay in Keiko’s apartment, they became the gossip
mongers. Keiko was extremely awed by their careless behavior as the convenience store workers. Their
negligence irked her. They all turned into social animals that would not treat her professionally. Now only the
customers viewed her as an efficient worker.

Meanwhile, Shiraha was visited by his sister-in-law. She comes to Keiko’s house and gets acquainted
with their relationship. She lectures them about their current tough financial situations. Shiraha conveniences
Keiko to resign from her job in the convenience store and find the well paid full-time job. According to him if
Keiko gets a good job and earns well, the people will blame him less and leave him alone. Keiko thinks about
her sister’s reaction when she knew about the truth of her relation with Shiraha. She also thinks about the
change in attitude of the convenience store workers, which made it hard for her to work in the convenience
store. She decides that if leaving her job in the convenience store will make her seem normal and she can have
acceptance of the society, then she will do it. She resigns from her job. Keiko after quitting her job from the
convenience store becomes a body without the life-spirit in it. She loses the purpose of her life:

I no longer knew what standard to live by. Until now, my body had belonged to the convenience store,
even when I wasn’t working. Sleeping, keeping in a good physical shape, and eating nutritiously were all
part of my job. I had to stay healthy for work (Murata 148-49).

Shiraha finds a job for Keiko. They both leave to attend an interview to this new job. On the way Shiraha
walks into a departmental store to take a leak. Keiko follows him in that store. It was a rush hour and the
working hands were very few. The commodities were not arranged properly and Keiko starts hearing the
store’s voice telling her what to do. Keiko begins arranging all the commodities in a neat row in a self. And she
also take liberty in instructing the trainee store workers what else to be done in the store, “I couldn’t stop
hearing the store telling me the way it wanted to be, what it needed. It was all flowing into me. It wasn’t me
speaking. It was the store. I was just channeling its revelations from on high” (Murata 160).

She refuses to go to the interview. Shiraha calls her grotesque and walks out of her life. Keiko feels that
she is a convenience store woman and she will follow her instincts as a convenience store animal and work for
the convenience store. She says, “More than a person, I’m a convenience store worker. Even if that means I’m
abnormal and can’t make a living and drop down dead, I can’t escape that fact. My very cells exist for the
convenience store” (Murata 161).

Keiko had finally found her life purpose and she acknowledges the fact that she is born to be a
convenience store worker, this job gives her fulfillment and the purpose of her life. However low-paid or less
important this job might seem to the whole society, if it gives her happiness, satisfaction and purpose in life
she will do it. She will think about her happiness before the world’s prejudice. She concludes, “The voice of the
convenient store won’t stop flowing to me. I was born to hear this voice” (Murata 161). We can see the
feminist rallying cry in the conclusion in Convenience Store Women. Her sense of fulfillment can be seen when
she says:

I love this moment. It feels like “morning” itself is being loaded into me. The tinkle of the door chime as
a customer comes in sounds like church bells to my ears. When I open the door, the brightly lit box
awaits me- a dependable, normal world that keeps turning. I have faith in the world inside the light-
filled box (Murata 30).

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Works Cited

Takemori, Ginny Tapley, translator. Convenience Store Woman. By Sayaka Murata, Granta Books, 2019.

Sugawara, Maari, editor. “Normal”—What? In Conversation with Sayaka Murata, author of ‘Convenience Store
Womanin Toronto”. Japan in Canada.com, March 22, 2019. https://japanincanada.com/sayaka-murata/

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