In our day and age, means of production to acquire everything we need or want falls into the hierarchy of the brutal market. Many stories explore the dark underbelly of this process, a grimy dive into the places that suck people in and refuse to let them out until their pockets are dry or they’re dead. “The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes” is no different, yet it approaches the topic in a fairly different way. It’s humorous instead of dreadful, portraying the market as something to laugh in the face of instead, yet is also just as unsettling as those stories set in their ghastly settings. In “The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes,” Murakami utilizes absurdity as a way to make fun of today’s capitalism and how it strangely replicates the concept of cults, stomping on those below it. Murakami makes us question who are the true consumers within the society we live in, and the self-sustaining cannibalism that happens from the ground up.
In the beginning of the story, we follow the perspective of our protagonist as he sits down at a “Major Informational Seminar” he was invited to, where the president of the Sharpie Cake Company proclaims that they’re looking for new products within the essence of Sharpies, mimicking the air of a pastor delivering a sermon to devoted followers. As soon as he gets settled in his seat, the reader is disquieted as we’re let into a strange environment filled with fanatics regarding these confections.
Asking one of the other people there about the Sharpie Cakes and nearly professing that they don’t taste very good, the girl kicks him in the foot and whispers, “Coming to a place like this and bad-mouthing Sharpies? The Sharpie Crows could get you. You’d never make it home alive." This, along with the glares shot the protagonist’s way, gives an uncomfortable zeal regarding these Sharpie Cakes that the protagonist isn’t privy to. Intense devotion to these beings, the “Sharpie Crows,” and the promise of stability so long as they create the best product, is akin to the popular model of cults that have been formed throughout history.
Later on in the story, the protagonist is able to meet the Sharpie Crows because he bakes excellent Sharpie Cakes. This is similar to the idea in religion where if a follower does good in life, they get to ascend and meet their divine beings. Where religion drives people together through the means to do good, cults drive people through collective fear and the leader’s charisma. The protagonist is easily inducted into this ring by the president’s words, stating after the girl’s comment that he “was worried about the Sharpie Crows." It’s further sealed as the protagonist decides he’ll create the perfect new Sharpie Cake for the company to sell because of the promise of two million yen.
Casting his net out, the president is able to snatch the fish in the sea with the promise of money that not everyone will be able to receive. Not if they don’t try hard enough to satisfy their gods, the Sharpie Crows. This is further confirmed as the managing director leads the protagonist into the room where the crows live, describing them as “Their Holiness the Sharpie Crows." If those inducted don’t do “good enough,” they don’t get the money, or see the crows, and are supposedly cast out and left to fend for themselves. It’s hook, line, and sinker.
Cults and capitalism have been a comparison since the economic system shifted from the days of mercantilism and feudalism in the sixteenth century. Both of them institute social conditioning in a way where a person will slowly lose their sense of self, becoming a statistic instead of a person, subjected to the whims of a “higher goal.” Capitalism collapses without growth, yet those who benefit at the top will have the entire biosphere destroyed before the system is dismantled.
Murakami tentatively approaches this idea in his analogy when the protagonist describes what happens when Sharpie Cakes are thrown to the crows, “In their fever to reach the Sharpie Cakes, the crows pecked at each other’s feet and eyes. No wonder they had lost their eyes!” Then, when his Sharpie Cakes that were baked for the competition were fed to them, he says this, “Whether a cake was a Sharpie or non-Sharpie was a matter of life and death." The Sharpie Crows will do anything to reach the confections, fake or real, even if it means tearing each other up in the process.
With their mangled bodies, blind eyes, and mob mentality, these crows surely represent an absurd facsimile of those corporations and even the presidents of those companies at the top who will amputate themselves so long as they can stay at the top. Laying off workers, swallowing competition that were once partners, sacrificing assets to steal better ones. Self-cannibalism is the price of gluttony in the market.
The inherent humor within “The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes” diverts it from the rest of the stories that critique the current woes of our society, and shines most brightly within its ending. Instead of our protagonist selling his soul away by signing some contract or being tricked by authorities who can pluck their strings in order to get what they want, he takes agency of his situation. He exits the room with the crows by himself, declaring, “From now on I would make and eat the food that I wanted to eat."
Furthermore, he expresses apathy as he storms off, saying that, “the damned Sharpie Crows could peck each other to death” for all that he cared. For a protagonist to decline the offer served to him on a silver platter because he has the foresight to see how this will end gives autonomy back to the common worker. People who typically feel as though they don’t have a say in these things. Most of the audience who will read this story would have been subjected to the whims of capitalism at some point in their lifetime, therefore making this moment strangely vindicating in a way. He’s choosing to carve his own path without being allured by money or having preachers whispering the word of some god in their ear. He’s wielding the most dangerous weapon, one stronger than cults or capitalism alike: the word no.
Murakami runs a fine line within the realm of depressing humor. Under the guise of starving crows and lower-than-average confection cakes, he writes a critique on how society rewards these systems that decay from within and infect everything around them. The mindless conformity of consumers are re-contextualized within mad-eyed Sharpie Crows, and the companies who toy with them are nothing but the puppet masters toying with the strings.
What’s seen in front of the wall is only the tip of the iceberg, and behind it are the murky depths of cultivated cash cows. Capitalism has become so normalized because the effects of it have been concealed beneath layers of religious rhetoric. What’s seen as a part of the primary market is just the cost that comes with a flourishing nation. To those in control, the profits outweigh the pain. Yet, although Sharpies are considered non-toxic on their label, that doesn’t change the fact that inhaling the fumes or swallowing the ink can make someone sick.