The Identity Choice Dilemma In The Buried Giant

The Buried Giant is a novel published by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro in March 2015.The novel presents people's(Wistan,Gawain,Axl and Edwin)puzzled and unassisted life after the national war,portraying the struggle of the characters in the predicament and their difficult identity searches.Ishiguro concentrates on the living condition of human beings,and the identity choice dilemma as well as the solution of the dilemma implied in the novel are advantageous to stimulate readers' thinking concerning the multi-cultural society,accordingly it is worth studying.With the theoretical framework of “binary opposition” and “narrative syntax”,this thesis takes the novel The Buried Giant as the object of study,to analyze the identity choice dilemma faced by the protagonists in the novel through close reading of the text.It analyzes the cause and the state of the dilemma and the choice of the protagonists in the dilemma,to reveal the practical significance of the work.This thesis is organized in the following way.At first,it briefly introduces Ishiguro and his literary achievements as well as the plot of The Buried Giant,and reviews the main research and evaluation of his novels at home and abroad.Besides,on the basis of the binary opposition and narrative syntax,this paper elaborates the theoretical basis and interprets the research significance of this thesis.Secondly,on the basis of the theory of binary opposition,the paper explores the cause and existing form of the identity choice dilemma,revealing the dilemma of self-identity choice brought about by the opposition between war and peace for Wistan and Gawain,and the dilemma of family identity and national identity choice caused by the opposition between memory and oblivion for Axl and the younger generation.Various views and choices on war and peace,as well as memory and oblivion,are the fundamental sources of this dilemma.Thirdly,based on Todorov's narrative syntax,the thesis summarizes the characters' behavior patterns and analyzes selections of each character when confronting with the identity dilemma.Regardless of the consequence,there exists numerous indeterminacy in the course of their pursuit.This section examines character's pursuit modes,reveals the helplessness and confusion of characters in the dilemma,and evaluates the value of this uncertainty.Finally,the thesis reveals the practical significance of the novel to the diversified society.By analyzing the dilemmas of the protagonists' personal identity,family identity and national identity,this paper explores their selections in the predicament and the uncertainty of their selections.Accordingly,it comes to the conclusion that confronting the identity choice dilemma,the choices of characters in Ishiguro's works are full of unsureness,aiming to reveal people's confused state of existence under the great changes of wars and the society,and to stimulate contemporary mankind to consider the problem brought by the modern civilization.Everyone should pay attention to the living condition of human beings and endeavor to improve people's life and change their conception to better adapt the globalization.