A Study Of The Irony In A Pale View Of Hills

British writer Kazuo Ishiguro(1954-),winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017,is a prominent writer who has great influence throughout the world.A Pale View of Hills(1982)is the first novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro.The novel won the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize.It is written in the first-person point of view.The narrator Etsuko transfers her trauma of war and her sense of guilt to her daughter to a pair of fictional mother and daughter in order to heal her own trauma and get rid of her inner suffering.On the surface,the language of A Pale View of Hills is plain and concise,and the image of the major character is calm and restrained.However,a careful reading will help us to find that the novel's plain and concise language combination shows profound and complex ideological connotation,and the calm and restraint tone of the heroine actually reflects the deliberate suppression and disguise of her inner feelings,which is exactly the embodiment of the use of irony.Irony is therefore one of the remarkable features of A Pale View of Hills and is also an important perspective for us to explore the meanings and themes of the novel.With reference to the irony theory of D.C.Muecke and Wayne Booth,this thesis aims to analyze the three different types of irony in A Pale View of Hills and explore the artistic effect and literary value of this novel.The thesis consists of six parts,which are the introduction,four chapters and the conclusion.The introduction part first briefly introduces Kazuo Ishiguro and the main plot of A Pale View of Hills,then makes a literature review of A Pale View of Hills,and introduces the research significance and overall structure of this thesis in the end.The first chapter introduces the origin and development of irony,the definition of irony and the classification of irony,which seem to be diversified and complicated.The second chapter gives a definition of verbal irony and analyzes the application of it in A Pale View of Hills.In the novel,verbal irony is mainly manifested through the opposition between the literal meaning of the text and the actual meaning.This chapter mainly analyzes the characters' languages and other descriptive languages in the novel to explore the use of verbal irony.The use of verbal irony makes the character of the protagonist more three-dimensional,and the character image more vivid.The third chapter analyzes the use of situational irony in A Pale View of Hills.Situational irony includes two major types,one is the contrast between the development of the situation and the desire of the person,and the other is the contrast between the development of the situation and the expectations of the reader.Situational irony is mainly reflected in the plot development and situations of the novel.The use of situational irony makes the plot of the novel more dramatic,making the character of the novel more realistic and the theme of the novel more profound.The fourth chapter analyzes the structural irony caused by the unreliable narration of A Pale View of Hills.The acknowledgment or recognition of an unreliable narrator may be exactly what the author or text intended to negate.A Pale View of Hills has adopted a typical first-person point of view.The chapter explores the narrative effect of the novel with reference to Booth's rhetoric narration theory.The use of structural irony has greatly expanded the narrative space of the novel,highlighted the complex attitudes and feelings of the novelist toward the character in the novel and people's real life.The last part is Conclusion.A Pale View of Hills is the debut of Kazuo Ishiguro.The use of irony expands the writing space of the novel and embodies the attitude of Kazuo Ishiguro to the characters in the novel and the social environment in which it is located.The use of irony in A Pale View of Hills is a remarkable feature of this novel as well as of Kazuo Ishiguro's writing style,which has had an important impact on the creation of his later works.