The Banality Of Evil In An Artist Of The Floating World And The Remains Of The Day

Kazuo Ishiguro(1954 –),the winner of the Noble Prize for literature in 2017,is a Japanese-born British writer who ranks among the most celebrated contemporary writers.As Kazuo Ishiguro's early works,both An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day depict ordinary people's struggle in crucial historical periods.Both protagonists Ono and Stevens hold great ambition and work hard trying to achieve something good.However,it turns out that instead of doing something useful,they commit evil deeds: Ono the artist involves himself in the evil imperialism and Stevens the butler blindly follows his master's order to appease the Nazis.This thesis attempts to explore the characters' displaced life in the light of Hannah Arendt's “the banality of evil” so as to uncover the profound ethical value inherent in Ishiguro's works.The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One focuses on the banality of Ono and Stevens' evil,that is,they commit evil not out of wicked motives but out of their inability to think.Ono blindly trusts in imperialism and Stevens completely obeys his pro-Nazi master.Chapter Two analyzes the deeper reasons accounting for their thoughtlessness.It discloses how the dominant ideology interpellates Ono into a thoughtless subject and how it institutionalizes Stevens into a mere order-taking machine.Chapter Three,by exploring the protagonists' reflection on personal responsibility and innocent characters' action,thinking and judgment,tries to talk about the possibility and possible ways of fighting against the banality of evil.Also,this thesis argues that these two novels,by drawing readers' attention to ordinary people's tendency to thoughtlessly commit evil,show their power to fight against the banality of evil.This displays the profound ethical value inherent in these two works.