A Study Of Identity In Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View Of Hills

A Pale View of Hills,Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel,published in 1982,won the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize.In the novel,characters suffer from different degrees of identity problems.Due to Kazuo Ishiguro's complicated personal identity,he claims himself an “international writer”,and his special family background and immigrant experiences highlight identity issues in his work.Pursuing identity becomes an important part in his writing.In addition,living in an era of globalization and immigration,people concern more about identity than before.Among the researches at home and abroad,most of them focus on works like The Remains of the Days,Never Let Me Go and When We Were Orphans,which have won international awards.Researches on A Pale View of Hills are relatively rare.Therefore,study on Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel is a way for better understanding his concerns and thoughts.With identity as the entry point,this thesis focuses on Kazuo Ishiguro's debut work,A Pale View of Hills.It contains four parts.The first part introduces definition and key issues of identity.The second part analyzes identity crisis and construction which are embodied in characters such as Ogata-San,Etsuko,Keiko and Niki.The third part discusses the author Kazuo Ishiguro's views on identity.And the last part is conclusion,which summarizes the whole thesis and points out Kazuo Ishiguro's attitude towards identity.Through close reading and analysis of the novel,the thesis concludes that Kazuo Ishiguro holds an inclusive and optimistic view on identity.He believes that identity,against the background of change,is open to construction and is always in the process of becoming.