A Study of Postcolonial Narrative in the Remains of the Day

ISSN 1923-1555[Print] Studies in Literature and Language ISSN 1923-1563[Online] Vol. 19, No. 3, 2019, pp. 85-91 www.cscanada.net DOI:10.3968/11388 www.cscanada.org A Study of Postcolonial Narrative in The Remains of the Day WANG Anqi[a],*; ZENG Yanbing[b] [a]Foreign Language College, Jiangxi Normal University, Nancahng, China. INTRODUCTION [b]Associate professor, Foreign Language College, Jiangxi Normal A well-known Writer of Japanese-British Origin, Kazuo University, Nancahng, China. * Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. Later he Corresponding author. went to England with his father and lived in London. He Received 12 August 2019; accepted 2 November 2019 acquired British citizenship in 1982. In terms of his main Published online 26 December 2019 works, there are A Pale View of Hills (1982), Artist of the Floating World (1986), The Remains of the Day (1988), Abstract The Unconsoled (1995), When We Were Orphans (2000) The winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017, and Never Let Me Go (2005). Ishiguro Kazuo has won the Kazuo Ishiguro，is a famous contemporary Japanese- Booker Prize and the Winifred Holt Award. Many works British novelist who, together with Salman Rushdie and V. have been nominated for the Booker Prize many times. S. Naipaul, is known as the “Three Giants of Immigrants” His latest novel Never Let Me Go was also shortlisted for in British literature. His novel, The Remains of the Day, Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2005, and the novel has was published in 1988 and won Booker Prize in 1989. been translated into more than a dozen languages and has The Remains of the Day takes two World War and typical been adapted They have been awarded the Order of the British manor as the background and uses the first person British Empire and the Order of the Knights of French retrospective narration form to describe the postwar Arts and Literature. They are regarded as the most popular British butler Stevens in the face of the historical change, and one of the respected writers in England. In addition, the master replacement and some other series of events. Kazuo Ishiguro and V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie are The protagonist Stevens has gone through a process of also known as “Three Giants of Immigrants” in the British identity change in different background, which is also the literary world. Ishiguro Kazuo successfully won the Nobel process of re-rebuilding identity through various events. Prize in Literature in 2017. As one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s representative works, The The Remains of the Day was published in 1988 and Remains of the Day is successful in its unique narrative subsequently won the Booker Prize in 1989. The American strategy. Based on narratology theory and Said’s post- Publishers Weekly and other several magazines have colonial identity theory, this paper attempts to explore praised the well-deserved Booker Prize-winning novel The the subject of the protagonist’s identity behind the text Remains of the Day as “an elaborate masterpiece, which by virtue of Stevens’ unreliable narration, so as to show not only makes a convincing analysis and deep study of the process of his subjectivity, identity loss and identity personal psychology, but also meticulously depicts the reconstruction. fallen social order”. The scholars at home and abroad are Key words: The Remains of the Day; Unreliable keen to study Ishiguro’s work from the perspectives of narration; Post-colonism; Identity postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, narrative techniques, theme analysis and the comparison among several works. It is undoubted that this novel has many research values. Wang, A. Q., & Zeng, Y. B. (2019). A Study of Postcolonial Narrative in The Remains of the Day. Studies in Literature Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day was and Language, 19(3), 85-91. Available from: http:// published in 1988 and won the Booker Prize in 1989, www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/11388 which is the most prestigious book in English literature. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/11388 Since the publication and award of The Remains of the 85 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture A study of Postcolonial Narrative in The Remains of the Day Day, enormous numbers of scholars have shown great 2. A STUDY OF POSTCOLONIAL interest in the novel. Early research on this novel is mainly about studying Ishiguro’s own immigrant background, the NARRATIVE IN THE REMAINS OF THE British culture and Japanese culture besides in his works. DAY And then more and more scholars began to use the theory of narratology to analyze this novel. In addition, some 2.1 The Composite Narrative Method aspects such as post-colonialism, trauma description and The point of view is the perspective of the novel’s theme analysis also attracted more and more scholars observation and narrative, “in the novel’s skill, the whole to study. The main outputs of the research on Ishiguro complicated method problem, I think, must be subject to by foreign scholars are monographs, essay collections the problem of the point of view, that is, the relationship and periodicals. Abroad studies focus on analyzing from between the narrator’s relative story position”. The almost three aspects: narrative strategy, thematic analysis traditional term point of view, or focalization, usually has and comparison of the novel with Ishiguro’s other novels. two interpretations. The first being structural, that is, the perspective used by the narrator, which directly acts on the events being narrated. The second is stylistic, that is, 1. RELATED STUDIES AT HOME AND the narrator’s position, opinion, tone and tone expressed ABROAD through the text in the narrative, and it indirectly acts on the event. Structural perspective is an important means of The domestic attention to Ishiguro and his works is regulating narrative information and distance, so narrators posterior to abroad and started in Taiwan for the first time. are very interested in this field and pay great attention Domestic research on Ishiguro started later than abroad, to the classification of different types of perspectives. and the study of Ishiguro is mainly reflected in the study Friedman proposed eight types of perspectives, and of his Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Gennett divided the narrative perspectives into “zero Day. In 1994, Ishiguro’s first novel A Pale View of Hills focalization”, “internal focalization” and “external was published by Taiwan Literature Publishing House. focalization”. Professor Shen Dan then put forward four After that, Ishiguro’s other works have been translated different types of perspectives or focalization, namely and introduced to China successively. His works are not zero perspective, internal view, first-person external introduced into mainland China until 2002, when When perspective and third-person external perspective. Shen We Were Orphans was published by Yilin Press. The Dan’s division is characterized by distinguishing the Remains of the Day was not published until 2008. In first-person external perspective from the third-person The Remains of the Day was first translated into Chinese external perspective. On the one hand, this division avoids by Mao Guoan in 2008 (nine years after the novel won Friedman’s error, but also to make up for the leakage the prize). Since then, more and more scholars in China of Gennett, which to a large extent avoids the Western began to pay attention to the novel. The first research on narrative circle for the first-person narrative perspective Ishiguro appeared in 1994, Zhong Ziqing in his article of the classification of the existence of one-sided. firstly talked about the life and works of Ishiguro. The In the narrative perspective, The Remains of the Day author searched the China Knowledge Network and found mainly uses the first-person internal perspective and the that before 2005 the number of research on Ishiguro and first-person external perspective of the dual composite The Remains of the Day was very limited, and from 2005 narrative focus. Both the first-person narrator’s narrative to 2019, there have been 100 papers on the study of The “I” is experiencing the vision of events, but also the first- Remains of the Day. It can also be seen that the scholars person narrator “I” recall the past vision. The narrator have shown diverse interest in this research. butler Stevens is in the center of focus, It’s all about what Compared with the studies abroad, the studies at home he sees, hears, experiences, and remembers. For example, are still in the process of making progress. Most of the at the beginning of a novel: research achievements are theses and dissertations. They “It seems increasingly likely that I really will mainly explore themes, narrative strategies and features undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my of post colonialism of The Remains of the Day. These imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should studies provide insights and provoke further thoughts for say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr researchers interested in the book. Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, To sum up, the current research on The Remains of the will take me through much of the finest countryside of Day in the academic circles at home and abroad is mainly England to the West Country, and may keep me away interpreted from the following aspects, which includes from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The narrative strategy, new historicism, postcolonialism, idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, cultural identity research, the theme of the novel from the from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday aspects of identity loss, nostalgia, existentialism and so himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had on.

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