DOCSLIB.ORG

A Study of Kazuo Ishiguro in Three Novels: the Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go & the Buried Giant

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Study of Kazuo Ishiguro in Three Novels: the Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go & the Buried Giant This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Negotiating forms, experimenting genres : a study of Kazuo Ishiguro in three novels: the remains of the day, never let me go & the buried giant Hafizah Amid 2018 Hafizah Amid. (2018). Negotiating forms, experimenting genres : a study of Kazuo Ishiguro in three novels: the remains of the day, never let me go & the buried giant. Master's thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73221 https://doi.org/10.32657/10356/73221 Downloaded on 02 Oct 2021 23:42:39 SGT Negotiating Forms, Experimenting Genres: A Study of Kazuo Ishiguro in Three Novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go & The Buried Giant Hafizah Amid School of Humanities 2017 Negotiating Forms, Experimenting Genres: A Study of Kazuo Ishiguro in Three Novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go & The Buried Giant Hafizah Amid School of Humanities A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts 2017 Acknowledgements My sincerest and heartfelt gratitude goes to all those who have given me this opportunity to work on and complete this thesis, especially Dr Neil Murphy, whose infinite patience and guidance was a constant source of inspiration for me. A special thanks also goes out to the English Department at NTU, Dr Graham Matthews and Dr Shirley Chew, for their indispensable advice and support, as well as my dearest family, partner and friends. Table of Contents Introduction: Genre and Form; Genre as Form .................................................... 1 Chapter One: The Remains of the Day as a Novel of Manners ......................... 23 Chapter Two: Never Let Me Go as Dystopian Science-fiction .......................... 52 Chapter Three: The Buried Giant as Medieval Fantasy Romance .................... 87 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 120 Works Cited ..................................................................................................... 121 Abstract This dissertation aims to interrogate the genre conventions and stereotypes as employed by British novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro, particularly in the post-war novel of manners, The Remains of the Day, the dystopian sci-fi narrative, Never Let Me Go, and finally, the medieval fantasy romance, The Buried Giant as literary devices. Arguing that instead of simply conforming to the genre-specific stylistic stereotypes of the aforementioned genres, Ishiguro first draws his readers into his stories with the use of these familiar genre cues, and then transgresses them both to create narrative tension and negotiate with his readers his unique viewpoints and beliefs regarding some of his recurring ideas surrounding the human condition: loss, the fragility of human memory and how we cope with them. Ultimately, I hope to demonstrate that as a writer, Ishiguro aims to interrogate the boundaries of not just what he considers to be genres but also fictional narratives. Hafizah 1 Introduction: Genre and Form; Genre as Form What is genre? And what is the difference between genre and form? At the most basic level, the differences between the two terms seem straightforward enough. According to Oxford Dictionaries, like genre, a word derived from French and Latin, and which is defined as a style or category of art, music, or literature, form too is used to denote type or variety. The difference in definitions lies in the particularity of the word ‘form’ which also implies shape, or even configuration. Nevertheless, when used in the context of the society to describe the cultural products of art, language and especially literature, David Duff, in Modern Genre Theory, specifies genre as a “recurring type of category of text, as defined by structural, thematic and/or functional criteria.” Genre is also frequently utilised, at times derogatorily, to classify types of popular fiction in which a “high degree of standardisation is apparent” (xiii). Although form is often used synonymously with genre, form, however, could imply a particular type of literary work like a sonnet, as well as a means to differentiate between “the form and function of a given genre, and – a less reliable distinction – between its form and content (that is, its structural as distinct from thematic characteristics)” (xii). Further to these definitions, I would also contend that on the one hand, genre is often perceived to be connotative of rules, conventions and stereotypes that have either been accepted by culture or conceptualised by literary critics. Form, on the other hand, alludes to narrative techniques, devices, as well as elements employed in unravelling a story that an author has intended for his or her own work, which thus, opens itself up to literary experimentation. It is Hafizah 2 therefore unsurprising that compared to form, genre is an ever more contentious and problematic concept simply because it is difficult to agree on the boundaries and standards of what makes a particular work belong to a particular genre. Furthermore, the classification and organisation of genres is not a neutral or impartial process and can be rather subjective, especially with significant disagreement about the definition of specific genres, or even, sub-genres. Since classical times, however, various critics and artists have dealt with genre in varied ways. In Aristotle’s Poetics, one of the earliest surviving works on literary theory, genre is described as broad categories of dramatic works, including tragedy and comedy, as well as lyric and epic poetry, depending on their medium, objects and “manner or mode of imitation” (ch. i). Even though Aristotle appears to idealise the “tragic mode of imitation” and proclaims it the “superior” and “higher art” to epic poetry, such taxonomic and dogmatic approaches to genre unfortunately continue to be dominant through much of the history of genre criticism, and this is despite artists like Shakespeare at times satirising these fixed and rigid frameworks (ch. xxvi). Hence, in an effort to defend the need for a genuine and systematic study of literary criticism, Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism claims that just as there is nothing that the philosopher or historian cannot analyse in his own specialised fields, the literary critic too “should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own” (12). Since criticism is to “art what history is to action and philosophy to wisdom,” Frye not only develops on the Aristotelian concept of genres, but also expands on it after he laments how “the critical theory of genres is stuck precisely where Aristotle has left it” (12-13). Hafizah 3 By differentiating narrative into modes that are dependent on the hero’s power of action, he thus formulates categories such as myth or irony (33-34). For myths, which he perceives form the underpinnings of all major art forms including literature, music and paintings, as well as symbols, a comprehensive albeit prescriptive mode of identification and classification follows, after which, he classifies genre depending on the “radical of presentation.” For Frye, the “radical of presentation” refers to the condition established between the artist and his or her audience that determines if the literary work is meant to be acted out, sung, spoken, or even read in a book. Indeed, these formal genre distinctions, together with his other monumental theories on literary modes, and symbolic and mythic archetypes, are important to Frye to make meaning in this prolific “age of the printing press” (246). Yet, this archetypal framework for genres still encompasses wide-ranging and far-reaching categories of literature that seem rather restrictive and has since become obsolescent. Incidentally, one of the most influential and pervasive pieces to be published on the topic of genres seemingly refutes the concept of genres altogether. In “The Law of Genre,” Jacques Derrida explicates, “As soon as the word ‘genre’ is sounded, as soon as it is heard, as soon as one attempts to conceive it, a limit is drawn… [and] norms and interdictions are not far behind: ‘Do,’ ‘Do not,’ says ‘genre,’ the word ‘genre,’ the figure, the voice, or the law of the genre” (203). In describing the law of genre as a law against miscegenation, Derrida posits that a genre is contradictory in its function to classify, as there can be no “genreless text,” and since all texts participate in one or several genres, their “participation never amounts to belonging.” Its Hafizah 4 “generic mark” that characterises a text as partaking of a particular genre, does not necessarily circumscribe itself as “belonging” to it as well, thereby defying genre classifications (212). Undeniably, Derrida’s law of genre problematises the study of genre in two ways: if the structural, taxonomical doctrine of genres is futile, or at least much too biased towards those who decide on the definitions and differentiations of various literary works into their various types, then in the face of such rich, vibrant genre hybridity as performed by artists such as Shakespeare, or even the Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, should the study of genres be developed further or abandoned completely? The answer lies, perhaps, in the literary theories of the Russian Formalists, notably Mikhail Bakhtin. Picking it up, as it were, from where Frye’s archetypal approach to genre was discussed, Bakhtin proposes a socio- linguistic, dialogic approach to the novel, which to him represents a literary genre that is not only immensely multi-faceted and multi-voiced, but also self- reflexive in nature (Morris 113). In his seminal engagement with the works of Dostoevsky, Bakhtin declares, “Dostoevsky is the creator of the polyphonic novel” (Problems 7). Different from the attempts of previous novelists, Dostoevsky has performed a “small-scale Copernican revolution” when he developed the polyphonic novel, allowing both his hero and other characters to share in the privilege of what was previously the singular authority of the author in visualising and constructing the textual world of the narrative (49).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Stars Align Big Events Bard Barre
    DINING OUTSOCIETY DIARIES BALLET STARSALIGN BIG EVENTS BARD BARRE Weightsand Measures was Former President George Stanton Welchdebuts “meant to be”sayschef/ W. Bush entertains at an his take on Shakespeare’s owner. Page G10 exclusivedinner. Page G14 ‘Romeoand Juliet.’ Page G2 GRAY MATTERS CLASSICAL MUSIC LeonardNimoy’s Symphony Mr.Spock wasone of pops the most counterculture conductor hasbig plans figures of the 1960s. for final years in Houston. HoustonChronicle.com/GrayMatters ZEST Page G14 HoustonChronicle @HoustonChron Houston Chronicle | Sunday, March 1, 2015 |HoustonChronicle.com and Chron.com Section G 666 Ishiguro on war, forgetfulness and cowboys In 1987,Kazuo Ishiguro the Day,” haunting newbook —his Kazuo holed up in his South aBooker firstnovelin10years — Ishiguro London home and wrote Prize- hadalonger gestation. maniacally—not caring winning “A smuchas15years Theauthor will read and about styleorfiner plot book thaT back, Iwanted to write discuss his work as aguest points, writing freehand brought about society’sremem- of Inprint’sMargarett Root as fast as the words and MAGGIE him inter- bering and forgetting,” BrownReading Series. GALEHOUSE phrases came. national said Ishiguro,60, on the When: 7:30 p.m. March 23 He wrote 12 hours a Bookish acclaim and phone from his home in day, six days aweek,for became an England. “Itwas triggered Where: Wortham TheateR Center,501 Texas four weeks. And when Oscar-nominated film. by what happened in the Columbia Pictures he finished, hedafi ha rsT “The Buried Giant,” 1990s, when Yugoslavia Tickets: $5; “The Remains of theDay,” based on Ishiguro’snovel, draft of “The Remains of Ishiguro’s strangeand Bookish continuesonG6 inprinthouston.org.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhuming the Narrator in the Buried Giant Jay Campbell
    EXHUMING THE NARRATOR IN THE BURIED GIANT GENRE AND INTERTEXTUAL INFERENCE IN THE NOVELS OF KAZUO ISHIGURO BY JAY CAMPBELL FORLONG A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON 2019 2 Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 7 Method and Theory .................................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter Overviews.................................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter One – Establishing Expectations of Mimesis ..................................................... 23 Realism and The Remains of the Day ............................................................................................... 24 Science Fiction and Never Let Me Go ................................................................................................ 35 Chapter Two – The Buried Giant and Pushing Beyond Mimesis .................................. 45 Intentional Awkwardness and Synthetic Commitments ........................................................ 48 Expecting the Unexpected and Deferred Revelation
    [Show full text]
  • On Rereading Kazuo Ishiguro Chris Holmes, Kelly Mee Rich
    On Rereading Kazuo Ishiguro Chris Holmes, Kelly Mee Rich MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 67, Number 1, Spring 2021, pp. 1-19 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/786756 [ Access provided at 1 Apr 2021 01:55 GMT from Ithaca College ] Chris Holmes and Kelly Mee Rich 1 On Rereading Kazuo f Ishiguro Chris Holmes and Kelly Mee Rich To consider the career of a single author is necessarily an exercise in rereading. It means revisiting their work, certainly, but also, more carefully, studying how the impress of their authorship evolves over time, and what core elements remain that make them recognizably themselves. Of those authors writing today, Kazuo Ishiguro lends himself exceptionally well to rereading in part because his oeuvre, especially his novels, are so coherent. Featuring first-person narrators reflecting on the remains of their day, these protagonists struggle to come to terms with their participation in structures of harm, and do so with a formal complexity and tonal distance that suggests unreli- ability or a vexed relationship to their own place in the order of things. Ishiguro is also an impeccable re-reader, as the intertextuality of his prose suggests. He convincingly inhabits, as well as cleverly rewrites, existing genres such as the country house novel, the novel of manners, the English boarding school novel, the mystery novel, the bildung- sroman, science fiction, and, most recently, Arthurian fantasy. Artist, detective, pianist, clone: to read Ishiguro always entails rereading in relation to his own oeuvre, as well as to the literary canon.
    [Show full text]
  • Az Elme Örvényében Az Emlékezés Mintázatai Kazuo Ishiguro Regényeiben
    DOI: 10.15774/PPKE.BTK.2017.004 Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem Bölcsészet- és Társadalomtudományi Kar Irodalomtudományi Doktori Iskola Dabis Melinda Az elme örvényében Az emlékezés mintázatai Kazuo Ishiguro regényeiben Doktori (PhD) értekezés Az Irodalomtudományi Doktori Iskola vezetője: Prof. Szelestei Nagy László DSc egyetemi tanár A Modern Irodalomtudományi Műhely vezetője: Horváth Kornélia PhD egyetemi docens Témavezető Tóta Péter Benedek PhD egyetemi docens Budapest, 2017 DOI: 10.15774/PPKE.BTK.2017.004 Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral School of Literary Studies Dabis Melinda In the Vortex of the Mind Patterns of Memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novels Doctoral (PhD) dissertation Head of Doctoral School: Prof. László Szelestei Nagy DSc Head of Doctoral Programme in Modern Literary Studies: Assoc. Prof. Kornélia Horváth PhD Supervisor Assoc. Prof. Benedek Péter Tóta PhD Budapest, 2017 2 DOI: 10.15774/PPKE.BTK.2017.004 CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Chapter 1 The Research Framework .................................................................................................. 7 Ishiguro and Japan .........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Kazuo Ishiguro's Postmodern Hypertexts: Generic Re
    KAZUO ISHIGURO’S POSTMODERN HYPERTEXTS: GENERIC RE- CONFIGURATIONS IN THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS, AND THE BURIED GIANT A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY YAĞMUR SÖNMEZ DEMİR IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE OCTOBER 2020 Approval of the thesis: KAZUO ISHIGURO’S POSTMODERN HYPERTEXTS: GENERIC RE- CONFIGURATIONS IN THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS, AND THE BURIED GIANT submitted by YAĞMUR SÖNMEZ DEMİR in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature, the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University by, Prof. Dr. Yaşar KONDAKÇI Dean Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Çiğdem SAĞIN ŞİMŞEK Head of Department Department of Foreign Language Education Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elif ÖZTABAK AVCI Supervisor Department of Foreign Language Education Examining Committee Members: Prof. Dr. Nursel İÇÖZ (Head of the Examining Committee) Middle East Technical University Department of Foreign Language Education Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elif ÖZTABAK AVCI (Supervisor) Middle East Technical University Department of Foreign Language Education Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ali ÇELİKEL Pamukkale University Department of English Language and Literature Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hülya YILDIZ BAĞÇE Middle East Technical University Department of Foreign Language Education Assist. Prof. Dr. Selen AKTARİ SEVGİ Başkent University Department of American Culture and Literature I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Civil, Silent, and Savage in Ishiguro's the Buried Giant
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 6-30-2016 The iC vil, Silent, and savage in Ishiguro's The Buried Giant Alexander J. Steele University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Steele, A. J.(2016). The Civil, Silent, and savage in Ishiguro's The Buried Giant. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3525 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CIVIL, SILENT, AND SAVAGE IN ISHIGURO’S THE BURIED GIANT by Alexander J. Steele Bachelor of Arts Portland State University, 2012 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2016 Accepted by: Thomas Jackson Rice, Director of Thesis John Muckelbauer, Reader Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Alexander J. Steele, 2016 All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Jackson Rice of the English department at the University of South Carolina for his considerable effort in directing this thesis. While supportive and encouraging of my work, Dr. Rice took great care to push me when my thoughts needed pushing, and patiently reminded me time and again that form is never secondary to content. I would also like to thank Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory and Ageing in Kazuo Ishiguro's Novels
    “Stop … and Remember” 86 DOI: 10.2478/abcsj-2018-0018 American, British and Canadian Studies, Volume 31, December 2018 “Stop … and Remember”: Memory and Ageing in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novels CATHERINE CHARLWOOD University of Oxford, Great Britain Abstract This article foregrounds representations of ageing and memory within Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, particularly Never Let Me Go (2005) and, the less critically considered, The Buried Giant (2015). While criticism and reviews touch upon themes of ageing, loneliness, and loss of bodily function, scholars are yet to reveal either the centrality of this to Ishiguro’s work or how this might speak to real-life questions surrounding ageing. Few readers of Never Let Me Go realise that in writing it Ishiguro’s guiding question was ‘how can I get young people to go through the experience of old people’? The arguments here seek to restore such authorly intentions to prominence. Ishiguro is more interested in socio-cultural meanings of ageing than biologically impoverished memories: this article examines the shifting relationships Ishiguro presents between memory and age as regards what happens to the ways in which memories are valued, and how people might be valuable (or not) for their memories. Interdisciplinary with age studies and social gerontology, this article demonstrates how Ishiguro both contributes to, and contends with, socially constructed concepts of ageing. In refocusing Ishiguro criticism onto reminiscence rather than nostalgia, this article aims to put ageing firmly on the agenda of future research. Keywords: memory studies, age studies, ageing, gerontology, reminiscence, identity, old age, narrative Memory is one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s great themes, but a related – though slightly less obvious – theme is that of ageing.
    [Show full text]
  • Rie Kido Askew：Kazuo Ishiguro, the Buried Giant, London: Faber and Faber, 2015. Pp. 1-345
    127 Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, London: Faber and Faber, 2015. pp. 1-345. Book Review Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, London: Faber and Faber, 2015. pp. 1-345. Rie Kido Askew “ The giant, once well buried, now stirs. When soon he rises, as surely he will, the friendly bonds between us will prove as knots young girls make with the stems of small flowers. Men will burn their neighbours’ houses by night. Hang children from trees at dawn. The rivers will stink with corps bloated from their days of voyaging. And even as they move on, our armies will grow larger, swollen by anger and thirst for vengeance”（324）. Kazuo Ishiguro is not afraid of a challenge. In each of his works, he has explored a new world, all of which are original and imaginative.1） Many readers must have wondered what would come after Never Let Me Go（2005）, a science fiction dystopia that discusses human clones. Few, however, might have expected that Ishiguro would ever produce a fantasy novel in line with what Hannah Arendt once called the “tradition of dragon-slayers” in British fiction.2） In fact, his much awaited new – and his seventh – novel, The Buried Giant, shares some resemblance to works such as Beowulf and The Hobbit for its inclusion of risky adventure, fighting ogres and slaying a dragon. Did his challenge go too far this time? Some readers certainly think so. They believe Ishiguro not only failed to create a persuasive adventure story, but also ruined his usual subtlety.3） To be fair to Ishiguro, however, The Buried Giant is a successful adventure novel with characters you can feel for.
    [Show full text]
  • Mythology in Kazuo Ishiguro's the Buried Giant
    World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:10, No:7, 2016 0DNLQJDµ2QFHXSRQD7LPH¶0\WKRORJ\LQ.D]XR ,VKLJXUR¶VThe Buried Giant 0DVDPL8VXL $[ODQG%HDWULFH¶VTXHVWWRILQGWKHLUORVWVRQWXUQVDXQLYHUVDO Abstract².D]XR,VKLJXUR¶VFKDOOHQJLQJQRYHOThe Buried Giant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µRQFHXSRQDWLPH¶DQGLWVHYLO UHSHDWHGO\RFFXUULQJ\HWHDVLO\IRUJRWWHQKLVWRU\RIGLFWDWRUVKLSDQGD OHJDF\ LV JUDGXDOO\ IRUJRWWHQ DQG LQWHQWLRQDOO\ FRQFHDOHG VODXJKWHURQP\WKRORJ\EDVHGRQ.LQJ$UWKXUDQGLWVUHODWHGKHURHV DQGP\WKVLQ%ULWDLQ2QDQRSHQJURXQG,VKLJXURFDQVWDUWKLVRZQ
    [Show full text]
  • Kazuo Ishiguro's the Buried Giant and His Earliest Works
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Memories Suppressed and Memories Lost: Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant and His Earliest Works 著者 TIEDEMANN Mark journal or The Journal of Nagasaki University of Foreign publication title Studies number 22 page range 161-167 year 2018-12-30 URL http://id.nii.ac.jp/1165/00000601/ Creative Commons : 表示 - 非営利 - 改変禁止 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.ja 長 崎 外 大 論 叢 第22号 Memories Suppressed and Memories Lost Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant and His Earliest Works. Mark TIEDEMANN 抑圧された記憶と失われた記憶 カズオ・イシグロの『忘れられた巨人』と初期作品 マーク ティーダマン Abstract Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel The Buried Giant contains unfamiliar and familiar elements for the Ishiguro reader. The landscape is 6th century Britain where the shadow of King Arthur remains as do mythical creatures, prompt- ing some to classify this book as fantasy. What is familiar is Ishiguro’s focus on memory. Yet, the approach to- ward memory here is different. In previous books, the memories explored were those that belonged to an indi- vidual who was recalling them, sorting through them, and trying to make sense of the past. In this story, the memories have been forcefully removed from the characters, so their struggle becomes one of attempting to re- call any basic fact of their past, rather than interpret them. This loss of the psychological dimension to memory makes the discussion of it less interesting than previous attempts. In addition, memories have been removed from the general population in an attempt to avert violent conflict.
    [Show full text]
  • Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro's the Buried Giant
    Open Cultural Studies 2018; 2: 25–38 Research Article Catherine Charlwood* National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0004 Received August 2, 2017; accepted March 12, 2018 Abstract: This article considers how Ishiguro’s 2015 novel about mass forgetting in post-Arthurian Britain adds to debates about what it means to be a human living within a society. There are four areas of enquiry linked by their emphasis on the interdependence of remembering and forgetting: ideas of memory in nationhood; the depiction of the British landscape; the cognitive process of recognition; and the emotional aspects of remembering. Interdisciplinary in scope, this article uses evidence from psychological studies of memory alongside detailed close readings of the text, allowing a more precise analysis of the role of the narrator and the effect of Ishiguro’s text on the reader. By keeping his previous corpus in view throughout, it evaluates Ishiguro’s continued use of memory and nationality as themes, while demonstrating the new departures offered by the conjunction of an ancient setting and a contemporary reading audience. One of the first sustained critical efforts on The Buried Giant, this article puts the novel firmly on the agenda of literary, cultural and memory studies respectively. Keywords: memory studies, narrative, Kazuo Ishiguro Memory is one of Japanese-born British novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro’s great themes. Indeed, Yugin Teo claims that “The work of memory is an aspect of his writing that makes him unique among his contemporaries” (151). In 2015, Ishiguro released his long-awaited seventh novel—his first in a decade.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Memory and Literature in Kazuo Ishiguro's the Buried Giant
    CROSSROADS. A Journal of English Studies Sylwia Borowska-Szerszun 10.15290/cr.2016.15.4.03 University of Białystok The giants beneath: Cultural memory and literature in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant Abstract. Drawing on the approaches of discussing the concept of memory within literary studies, as delineated by Erll and Nünning (2005), this paper examines The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro as a site of ‘memory of literature’ and as a ‘medium of cultural memory’. Reworking the well-known cultural motif of quest, Ishiguro’s novel also evokes associations with the medieval literary tradition, especially Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and contem- porary fantasy literature, understood as a mode of writing rather than a formula. It is also argued that by referring to a fictional past of Arthurian romances rather than historiography, the novel comments on the role of literature in creating cultural remembrance, becoming a specific metaphor of its processes. Keywords: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant, memory of literature, cultural memory, fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ten years before the publication of The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro, who had written five nov- els by then, was described by Peter Childs as an author concerned “with individuals scanning their pasts for clues to their sense of identity, loss, or abandonment” (23). In a more recent study Wojciech Drąg observes that the narrators of Ishiguro’s novels are motivated to revisit their pasts by the following desires: to tell about their loss, to forget or deny it, or to return to the time be- fore the traumatic experience (2-3).
    [Show full text]