Ending explained The City and Its Uncertain Walls Haruki Murakami

The City and Its Uncertain Walls Ending Explained – Full Spoiler Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Literal Account of the Ending

In the final chapters, the narrator has fully merged with Yellow Submarine Boy inside the walled town. They function as a team: the narrator coaxes old dreams from their shells, and the boy reads them. The girl (the librarian) is pleased with their work and bakes apple sweets as a reward. During a dream conversation, Yellow Submarine Boy uses an allegory from The Papalagi — climbing beyond a coconut tree into empty space where time has no meaning. He explains that only unconditional belief in someone catching them could prevent a fatal fall if time resumed. He admits he has no such living person, so he will remain in the town forever. The candle in their meeting room burns out, leaving darkness.

On the final night, the narrator says “Farewell” instead of “See you tomorrow,” puzzling the girl. He notices subtle changes in her features but realizes his own heart is shifting. He speculates she may vanish after he leaves. Walking home by the river, spring has arrived. Later, in his unconscious, he meets Yellow Submarine Boy again. They confirm the farewell; the boy advises him to believe in his other self. The narrator blows out the candle, and a deep, soft darkness falls.

In the afterword, Murakami explains that the novel originated from a 1980 novella he was never satisfied with. He wrote Hard‑Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985) as a partial response, but the original story continued to trouble him. During the coronavirus pandemic, in March 2020, he began rewriting. He finished Part One, let the manuscript ferment for six months, then added Parts Two and Three, completing the novel nearly three years later. He quotes Borges on the limited number of stories a writer can tell and reflects on truth as ceaseless change.

Climax Explained

The climax does not take the form of a single violent event. Instead, it is the moment the narrator chooses to stay in the walled town permanently, abandoning his shadow. In Chapter 26 (outline Chapter 27), the narrator tells his shadow he will not escape through the pool. “If we want to, I think we can safely get through the wall… But you’re still going to stay?” the shadow asks. The narrator nods, saying he sees no reason to return to a world where he will only grow more lonely. He shakes hands with his own shadow, then the shadow leaps into the pool and never resurfaces. The narrator returns alone to the town, never looking back.

The critical emotional climax occurs in Chapter 70, when the narrator says “Farewell” to the girl. He has already merged with Yellow Submarine Boy and knows he cannot remain. The repeated image of the candle burning out in dream meetings signals the dissolution of the boundary between selves. The final darkness after blowing out the candle represents the narrator’s acceptance of his fate: he will remain in the town, but his original consciousness may fade over eternity.

Major Character Outcomes

The narrator (protagonist): He stays in the walled town permanently. He merges (bites?) with Yellow Submarine Boy, and they work as a cooperative unit reading old dreams. His original self — the one who loved the girl in the real world — gradually fades. He accepts that the town will eventually swallow his separate consciousness.
The girl (librarian in the town): She remains as she was: a shadow living in the town, working at the library. On the final night, the narrator notices subtle changes in her features, and he speculates she may vanish after he leaves. She never remembers their real‑world relationship. Her fate is ambiguous — she may dissolve into the town’s system.
Yellow Submarine Boy: He merges fully with the narrator and will remain in the town forever. He acknowledges he has no living person who unconditionally believes in him, so he cannot risk a return to the outside. He becomes the reader of old dreams while the narrator leads them out.
Mr. Tatsuya Koyasu: He appears as a ghost after his death. In Chapter 44 (outline Chapter 44), he advises the narrator, suggesting the narrator’s own hidden will caused his return from the walled town. He fades away, last seen in the library. He is fully gone by the end.
The narrator’s shadow: He escapes the walled town by leaping into the pool under the wall. He may die shortly after separation, as shadows cannot survive long without their body — but the novel leaves open the possibility that he survives as a substitute in the outside world.
The Gatekeeper: He remains in the town, following the ritual of blowing the horn and managing the beasts. His fate is unstated; he is simply part of the system that continues.
The girl’s shadow (outside the town): In the real‑world segments, she disappears without explanation. The narrator visits her house to find another family living there; she has moved away. She never replies to his letters. Her ultimate location and fate are unknown.

Resolved and Unresolved Threads

Resolved threads

The merger with Yellow Submarine Boy: Completed and functional. The boy can read old dreams; the narrator leads them out. They work as a team.
The choice between town and outside: Resolved. The narrator chooses to stay, even though he later returns to the real world (the “inexplicable return” mentioned in Chapter 44). That return is never explained literally — only Mr. Koyasu’s suggestion that his own hidden will caused it.
The nature of old dreams: The shadow’s hypothesis is confirmed: old dreams are echoes of exiled minds containing dangerous emotions like sadness, jealousy, and love. The narrator’s role is to calm them through empathy.
Mr. Koyasu’s death and ghost: His ghost visits and gives final advice, then vanishes. His fate is closed.

Unresolved threads

The girl’s true self: Is the real girl the shadow in the town or the one who disappeared in the real world? The narrative never settles this. The narrator’s shadow suggests the opposite could be true: the outside girl might be real, and the town girl merely a shadow.
What caused the narrator’s return to the real world after he chose to stay? The novel never provides a clear mechanism. Mr. Koyasu’s ghost speculates it was the narrator’s own hidden will.
The origin and nature of the wall: The wall can change shape and location; it seems to have its own will. How it gained that power is hinted at (an “epidemic of the soul”) but never fully explained.
Yellow Submarine Boy’s future: He will remain in the town forever, but what happens to his consciousness over infinite time? The novel suggests erosion.
The fate of the outside girl: She disappears completely from the protagonist’s life. Her family moved; he never learns why or where she went. That thread remains open.
The significance of Mr. Koyasu’s wife leaving two scallions: He calls it an unsolvable riddle. It is never explained further.

Theme Resolution

Love and Loss

Love is presented as a force that can transcend reality, but also as something that can be severed by silence and disappearance. The narrator’s love for the girl drives him to the walled town, yet the town’s version of her cannot remember him. The theme resolves not through reunion but through acceptance: the narrator learns to “believe in his other self” and let go of the need for reciprocal memory.

Reality vs. Illusion

The novel refuses to resolve this binary. The walled town is both real and a metaphor. The shadow’s hypothesis that the town is a “land of shadows” and the outside holds real people is plausible — but so is the reverse. The wall itself is an illusion that becomes real when believed in. The narrator’s final state — merged, dreaming — suggests that the distinction no longer matters.

Identity and the Shadow

The narrator’s shadow represents his connection to the real world. After they separate, the narrator loses a part of himself, yet he gains a merged identity with Yellow Submarine Boy. The theme resolves to the idea that identity is not fixed but can be shared, transferred, or dissolved. The shadow may survive as a substitute in the outside, questioning the uniqueness of any self.

Memory and Forgetting

Memory is the only connection to the lost girl. In the town, the girl forgets him; the narrator must accept that his memories are enough. The “old dreams” are memories sealed away, needing empathy to be calmed. The theme suggests that forgetting is a form of protection, but remembering is a duty.

Isolation and Connection

The narrator’s isolation in the real world drives him into the town. There, he finds a semblance of connection with the girl and Yellow Submarine Boy, yet that connection is partial and impermanent. In the end, he is alone within his merged consciousness. The novel concludes that true connection may be impossible, but the attempt is all we have.

Epilogue Analysis

The afterword by Murakami functions as a meta‑epilogue. He explains the novel’s long germination — from an abandoned 1980 novella to the 1985 Hard‑Boiled Wonderland to this 2024 version. He writes, “I’ve rewritten (or perhaps completed) The City and Its Uncertain Walls in a fresh form, and honestly, I feel relieved.” He quotes Borges on the limited number of stories a writer can tell, and concludes: “Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change and movement.” This echoes the novel’s own theme: the wall’s mobility, the shifting of reality, the narrator’s changing heart. The afterword does not provide closure to the plot but offers closure for the author. It invites readers to consider the novel as one iteration of a story Murakami felt compelled to keep rewriting. The final “A Note About the Author” grounds the fictional world in Murakami’s real-life achievements.

Reasonable Interpretations

The town is a metaphor for the narrator’s inner world. The wall represents psychological defenses; the old dreams are repressed emotions; the shadow is the connection to reality. The narrator’s choice to stay means he chooses to live inside his own mind, unable to cope with loss.
The town is real but parallel. The narrator actually travels to a separate dimension. The wall’s ability to change location, the Gatekeeper’s rules, and the beasts’ sacrifice suggest a genuine alternate geography. In this reading, the narrator is a legitimate traveler who makes a real choice.
The entire novel is a dream. The girl’s opening description of the town, the fever dreams, the candle‑lit meetings, and the merging of identities all point to a dream logic. Murakami’s afterword about rewriting a “troubling” story could mean the novel is a fictionalized account of his own creative process.
The shadow is the real narrator. When the shadow leaps into the pool, he might survive in the outside world and become the “real” person. The narrator who remains in the town is actually the shadow. The shaking‑hands scene (Chapter 26) and the shadow’s comment that “it’s getting hard to distinguish the hypothetical from the real” support this reading.
Yellow Submarine Boy is the narrator’s younger self. The boy’s ability to absorb memories, his desire to go to the town, and his merging with the narrator suggest he represents the part of the narrator that never grew up. By merging, the narrator reclaims his lost potential.
The epidemic of the soul is existential despair. The wall was built to keep out a metaphorical plague of meaninglessness. The town’s system — suppressing emotions, sealing old dreams, eliminating shadows — is a totalitarian attempt to enforce peace. The narrator’s role as Dream Reader is to keep the despair contained.

Six Reader Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator say “Farewell” instead of “See you tomorrow”? He knows he will leave the town permanently. He has already merged with Yellow Submarine Boy and accepted that he cannot stay. The farewell is a final acknowledgment to the girl, even though she may not understand it.

2. Does the merged narrator still have free will? Partially. He and Yellow Submarine Boy work cooperatively, but the boy reads old dreams independently. The narrator’s original consciousness may be fading. Mr. Koyasu’s ghost suggests the narrator’s own hidden will caused his earlier return, implying some agency remains.

3. What happens to the narrator’s shadow after he jumps into the pool? He never resurfaces. He may have drowned, or he may have passed through into the outside world as a substitute for the narrator. The novel provides no certainty. In Chapter 26, the shadow says, “I’ll probably die in the not‑too‑distant future” — but he also has the wisdom and qualifications to survive.

4. Why did the girl disappear from the real world? The novel never reveals. The narrator finds her house occupied by a different family; her phone is disconnected; her letters stop. The disappearance is left as an unexplained void, representing the mysterious loss that drives the entire story.

5. Is Yellow Submarine Boy a real person or a fantasy? In the walled town, he is real enough to merge with the narrator. In the outside world, he is a library patron with unusual abilities. The novel does not distinguish sharply. Mr. Koyasu’s ghost treats him as a real boy who needs to find his own path.

6. What does the epigraph from Kubla Khan mean for the ending? The epigraph introduces imagery of a sacred river running through caverns to a sunless sea — a hidden geography. This parallels the walled town as a subterranean or liminal space. The ending, with the narrator descending into soft darkness, echoes the theme of passing into measureless depths. The wall’s uncertainty mirrors the unstable boundaries of Coleridge’s dream landscape.