Like Ripe Fruit (Simile)
While taking the bus out of Tokyo with Sakura, who he has just met, Kafka observes how Sakura's earrings "jiggle back and forth like two precarious pieces of ripe fruit ready to fall." In this simile, Murakami emphasizes the weight of Sakura's earrings by likening their swinging motion to fruit that has grown too heavy for the branch and is threatening to drop.
Music Disappearing Like Quicksand (Simile)
Alone in Oshima's cabin, Kafka listens to Prince on his Walkman. However, the batteries "run out in the middle of 'Little Red Corvette,' the music disappearing like it’s been swallowed up by quicksand." In this simile, Murakami illustrates the effect of the dead batteries on the audio by likening the music's sudden disappearance to a physical object being sucked into quicksand. The simile suggests that Kafka has the sense that the music has been lost forever in the void of silence.
The Clock Buried Inside Her (Metaphor)
When Oshima—a character prone to speaking in metaphors—tells Kafka about Miss Saeki's peculiar relationship to reality, he says that "the hands of the clock buried inside her soul ground to a halt" when her boyfriend died. In this metaphor, Murakami illustrates the abstract concept of Miss Saeki's internal relationship to time passing by speaking of her internal clock as though it is an actual physical object with time-keeping hands that have stopped moving.
Fate Is Like a Small Sandstorm (Simile)
In the opening chapter, the boy named Crow tells Kafka that the fate he is trying to escape sometimes acts "like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions." In this simile, Murakami assigns a visual equivalent to the concept of being unable to escape fate by likening fate to a sandstorm that envelops one no matter which direction one tries to run.
The Sky Is A Blanket of Gray (Metaphor)
On the bus to Takamatsu, Kafka watches Sakura sleep soundly next to him. He imagines he is a lonely voyager and that she is the sea. In his visualization, "the sky is a blanket of gray, merging with the gray sea off on the horizon." In this metaphor, Murakami illustrates the visual appearance of a cloud-filled sky by likening it to a physical gray blanket that covers the world.
