The Modern Shape-shifter Maiden in Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman

Abstract

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata won the Akutagawa Prize in 2016. The novel focuses on the daily routine of Keiko Furukura, a female part-time worker in a convenience store who struggles to be acknowledged as a normal person, even if she is single, does not have any romantic relationship or a well-paid job – three stereotypes which have transformed her into an abnormal, asexual being, a maiden deprived of any sex appeal who could not fit in the actual society. In order to get rid of this stigma she learns the "art of imitation" and develops a "shape-shifting strategy", a bakeru mode. Bakeru is a Japanese word which means "to take the form of, to transform into, to disguise oneself as" and this is exactly what she experiments: the speech mode bakeru, the fashion mode bakeru, the emotional mode bakeru, the situational mode bakeru, the absorbing mode bakeru. In all her attempts the convenience store works as an anchor to normalcy and it helps her preserve the very essence of her human nature.