A Thematic Study Of Collective Memory In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains Of The Day And An Artist Of The Floating World

Kazuo Ishiguro,one of the most preeminent British contemporary writers,has been rewarded with various literary prizes including Nobel Prize of 2017.Owing to his bio-cultural(both Japanese and British)upbringing,Kazuo Ishiguro always writes in an international way,grappling with universal and timeless themes.He is especially interested in manipulating memory in all his books.In The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World,he creates two representative protagonists—Stevens and Ono.Although Stevens is a British butler while Ono is a Japanese painter,they are troubled with the same predicament.Along with the changing of social climate,their personal memories appear to be incompatible with the collective memory.In these two novels,Kazuo Ishiguro seems to demonstrate the important role of collective memory in reconstructing personal memory.Since Maurice Halbwachs put forward the concept of collective memory,scholars have developed a theoretical memory framework that emphasizes the social forces in shaping memory.This thesis attempts to probe into the role of collective memory through the lens of Maurice Halbwachs' theory of collective memory and other developments of it,in order to answer three unresolved questions concerning the two novels of Kazuo Ishiguro: 1)How the collective memory of Britain and Japan was reconstructed after World War II.2)Under the influence of the newly constructed collective memory,how Stevens and Ono fall into the dilemma of memory and identity,and how they recall the past and thus come to terms with both the past and the present.3)What kind of limitations of collective memory are embodied in Ishiguro's novels.This paper consists of six chapters.The first chapter introduces the author and his works and makes a literature review of them.The second part of this chapter provides a theoretical support which includes diverse discussions and related developments of Halbwach's collective memory theory.The second chapter analyzes two kinds of representations of collective memory in the two novels,including cultural memory and communicative memory.The former mainly refers to people's perception of the past through visual sights such as buildings,while the latter refers to people's perception of the collective past and recognition of the collective value established through daily communication in each collective group.The third chapter centers on the construction of collective memory,the first part of which will firstly look at the force shaping national identity and the following part will concentrate on the reconstruction of social framework under the influence of a new national identity.The fourth chapter provides a new perspective to study Kazuo Ishiguro's works by focusing on the influence of collective memory on the reconstruction of individual memory and identity.Collective memory would require individuals to construct an accepted version of past and self in the current social context.In the two novels,the two narrators' identity crisis is caused by the conflicts between individual memory and collective memory.Solving the identity crisis of the two protagonists,therefore,would require them to reconstruct their personal memories.The fifth chapter will explore the limitations of collective memory reflected in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro.Collective can help individuals construct memories but cannot help individuals mourn the past.In conclusion,through exploring the theme of collective memory in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro,this thesis shows the writer's preoccupation with the sociality of memory.It can be concluded that: firstly,the identity crisis of Stevens and Ono can be tackled by solving the conflicts between collective memory and individual memory;furthermore,Kazuo Ishiguro presents in his novel memory's frangibility in face of the great world affairs and the change of social framework,disclosing the linkage of “world?nation?society?individual” and thus highlighting his international standpoint;meanwhile,by touching the more private side of memory existing outside the historical discourse,Ishiguro's works disclose the limitation of collective memory.