Breaking the (Autistic) Code: Keiko Furuka from Convenience Store Woman (2016)
After a month-long hiatus I have returned with a brand new episode of Breaking the (Autistic) Code. In today’s edition, I will talk about a Japanese novel by Sayaka Murata called Convenience Store Woman. This novel was published in 2016, winning praise from critics and winning the Akutagawa Award and Murata being named one of Vogue Japan’s Women of the Year that same year. I first heard about this book from a Reddit thread where the poster was asking about books that featured Autistic characters, this book being one of the suggestions.
As I read through the book, I have definitely noticed quite a few instances where Fururuka’s behavior would class her as Autistic in my mind. One of those instances was, during a flashback sequence, where Keiko finds a dead bird and suggests to her mother that they eat it for dinner. Her mother is distraught by this and chastises her for this action. Autistic people will often take rhetorical questions and other neurotypical communication literally and are often punished for doing so. This scene is important because many Autistic people won’t conceive what they did wrong unless it is explicitly explained to them. Keiko’s mother just told her it was wrong without going into why that was bad.
While her behavior is not explained explicitly, it is clear that Keiko does not view the world through a neurotypical lens. She makes multiple references to how others treat her, asking questions about her personal life, and how she perceives these types of interactions as a hope to be “cured.” A little later in the book, she sees that when people perceive her as “normal”, she is seen as “less.” This resonated with me because many people either expect me to have met neurotypical milestones at a certain age or else are totally surprised if I so much as went out to a party when they know me at a surface level.
Later, Keiko is hired as a Convenience Store worker and finds comfort in the job, right down to the scripted phrases. She is thirty-six years old, has worked at the convenience store since she was eighteen and has no interest in relationships. She is interested in maintaining a stable routine in her life, where she feels like she has value. She also copies her bosses and fellow co-workers, their inflections, and emotional reactions to certain situations. She is praised by her bosses for being reliable at her job and for her willingness to follow the rules. This certainly reflects my personal experiences as I have been praised by current and past employers for my work ethic and dependability. I also related to the sense of structure and security that comes with employment as I too, recently got hired for a job that gives me a sense of stability.
Keiko’s relationship to the store seems to go much deeper as some parts of the story have Keiko describing how the sounds and scents from the store occupy her senses. When we first meet her, she conceives of the convenience store as a “world of sound” and describes every part like a vital organ in a human body. Her whole character arc revolves around how she is a reliable part of the machine, like the shelves holding the products in the store itself or the oven cooking the hot food. Autistic people will often develop “relationships” with inanimate objects for a variety of reasons, one is that the object itself does not judge the Autistic person for simply existing.
We later meet, Shiraha, a middle-aged man, and an obvious incel, who makes great points about capitalistic society but then veers past it into reactionary misogyny when it comes to relationships between the sexes. He was an employee at the store for a short period of time before getting fired for stalking and mistreating both his female employees and female customers. During his first day, he basically just lazes about, complains about the work that he has to do, and insults the other employees at his soon-to-be-former job. Keiko and the other employees view him as a nuisance, and are glad that he is gone from the store.
Keiko soon runs into him again and invites him out to drink tea, Shiraha rants about how he is forced to contribute to society and the pressures that come with it. Shiraha absolutely hates it when people bother him about his ambitions and goals in life. Keiko decides to invite him to stay with her, Shiraha is surprised by this sudden invitation but quickly adapts to leeching off of Keiko. This scene and her relationship to Shiraha shows one of the many ways that Keiko seems to process these types of situations, instead of getting offended over Shiraha’s rants, she decides that Shiraha could also help her in some way by at least making her appear “normal” to her friends so that they stop pestering her about her private life.
Keiko decides to tell her sister about Shiraha living with her and the sister is surprisingly excited for Keiko, and later in the book, when she comes to visit her, Keiko explains that Shiraha is living in the bathroom and goes on to sort-of describe the relationship as sort-of like a pet and their master (Pg 169–170). The sister is very upset by this because she assumes that Keiko and Shiraha’s relationship was a romantic one and her hopes of her sister being “normal” are dashed. Shiraha comes in on time to correct Keiko’s faux-pas with a lie about the reason why he is in the bathroom and the awkward situation is resolved. I thought that this scene was hilarious because it does highlight how dead-honest most Autistic people are when describing a difficult situation, and how Keiko treated the whole situation was very similar.
These parts of the book resonated with me because I have met many people who have attempted to make me appear “normal” with no success. Everyone expects her, and by extension other Autistic people, to be one way, and she does try her best to accommodate everyone but it seems that she is not met with the same compassion. Her whole lifestyle, personality seems to confound all of her colleagues as she observes how people change their attitude around her once she starts becoming “like them.” Keiko is uncomfortable with this pressure but the people around her do not seem to care.
Soon, you start to see why Sheraha feels the way he does when the sister-in-law tells Keiko not to have children due to her genes being “bad.” The woman is not a doctor so it seems ridiculous to prescribe that sort of thing to a stranger but Keiko agrees with her assessment of her situation. Shiraha does go on to say that he has no romantic interest in Keiko and that he sees her as “just a parasite” that he wants to commit vengeance on for simply existing. (161) This felt very ironic to me considering that to Japanese society he would also be considered a parasite, since he takes no pride in his “purpose” in life while Keiko knows where her strengths lie and she wants to maintain that structure.
After Keiko accidentally tells her family, co-workers and boss about Shiraha moving in with her, she is met with praise for this action. They go on to voice their hopes that she decides to marry him and move onto a better job. This sudden change in behavior causes great frustration for Keiko because her colleagues are now more focused on her personal life than the store. She observes how everyone in the store has made up stories in their heads about her motivations for her relationship to Shiraha. She notices that the store is falling apart structurally but everyone else would rather talk about Keiko and Shiraha.
Shiraha convinces Keiko to quit her job and when Keiko is leaving the store, they are all happy to see her leave. They also encourage her to find more “fulfilling” work elsewhere and not in a convenience store. Keiko knows that without her, the store would soon fall into disarray. Keiko also falls into disarray, she does not groom herself like she normally would when getting ready for work. I related to this because when an Autistic person loses that one thing that gave them structure and purpose, they start to “regress” in their personality and mental health. I related to Keiko and her struggles for an identity in a world that is fighting for her to conform to their standards, she sees nothing in it for her.
Shiraha convinces her to apply for a better job so she can support him in his non-existent business. Keiko lands a job interview with a large company and when Shiraha needs to go inside a convenience store to use the restroom, Keiko follows him and soon finds herself reverting back to her habits from her previous employment. She starts re-organizing the shelves, and advising the workers at the store on how to display the products so that they can sell more. She speaks with authority when the workers speak to her about the store and agree to follow her advice. Shiraha is upset by this and attempts to force her to the interview, she refuses, telling Shiraha that she knows that her “role” is to work at a convenience store. Shiraha storms off, with Keiko going to find work at another convenience store.
I thought that this novel did a great job of portraying what happens when an Autistic person loses her sense of identity in a neurotypical society. Murata also makes some interesting commentary on how society perceives low-wage workers, and the kinds of conditions they are often forced to live in to survive. I found this book to be affirming in its stance on low-wage workers, especially disabled people who mainly occupy these jobs, and how everyone is needed in every facet of society and why they deserve to be treated with respect.
Originally published at https://vocal.media.
