| Kazuo Ishiguro,Japanese-born British novelist,won the Nobel Prize in 2017 for Literature with his novel “has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.Although he has the dual cultural background of Japan and Britain,Ishiguro is not constrained by a specific cultural background or national identity.He is willing to describe himself as an “internationalist writer” and pursues writing with universal significance.He often takes major historical events as the background and memory as clues.Through showing the trauma caused by war on individual and collective aspect,he tries to seek answers to many social problems in the field of literature.Almost all scholars who study Ishiguro agree that memory is his “emotional core”.Therefore,the theme of memory in Ishiguro’s novels is the focus of academic research.For Ishiguro,memory is not limited to neurological or philosophical aspect,but a tool for people to communicate with oneself,and to identify oneself through recollection.Since the1990 s,memory has become a hot topic in the field of social sciences,and the topic of collective memory has got more attention in particular.The concept of collective memory was first formalized by the sociologist Halbwachs.He believed that collective memory is the basis of individual memory.Individual memory is meaningful only in the framework of the collective,and the identity of the nation is also confirmed on the basis of collective memory.The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur,in his Memory,History,Forgetting asks some important questions concerning various concepts of memory.He particularly focuses on the abuses of collective memory when national powers impose their version of history upon their people,as well as the relationship between forgetting and forgiveness.Inspired by Paul Ricoeur,scholar Yujin Teo designated the concept of “the work of memory”--“forgetting”,“remembering” and “release”.It takes memory as a process,which overcomes a series of forgetting caused by various reasons through remembering or recollection,and then let go of the lost people or things in the form of mourning,so as to reach a state of reconciliation with the past,or rather,release.This thesis intends to combine the related theories of collective memory and the work of memory,and through the analysis of “The Buried Giant” and "Never Let Me Go" to further explore the theme of collective memory in Ishiguro’s works.In this way,I would like to further make clear how memories affect the identity confirmation,cultural selection and the dealing of national conflicts in collective level,and to see how Ishiguro think about the remembering and forgetting in collective levels and what inspirations we can get from his works.This thesis is mainly divided into three chapters,namely “collective forgetting”,“collective remembering”,and “collective release”.Chapter One talks about the collective forgetting in the two novels.Paul Ricoeur once proposed that in order to maintain dominance,the ruling class would force mass forgetting by means of neglect or denial,to suppress the national history that is not conducive to its own governance.In The Buried Giant,King Arthur ordered the magician Merlin to cast a spell to cause collective amnesia of the country in order to hide the genocide he once committed to the Saxons.This trick can only take effect temporarily,in the long run,the denial of memory can only bring in catastrophic consequences.Forgetting is a self-protection mechanism for human beings to escape from reality and responsibility,but the impact of forgetting on the victims is hard to ignore.In Never Let Me Go,due to the advancement of technology,human beings can use the clones to foster organs which can solve various intractable diseases.For their own interests,human beings deliberately deny and ignore the rights of clones,so that the clones are marginalized and treated unfairly,which raises a series of scientific ethics questions.The clones have bodies and souls just like human beings,however,they are only regarded as organ cultivation tools and are always on the verge of being exploited.The unrecognized and deliberately neglected living conditions make it difficult for the clones to produce correct self-awareness,which highlights the misery and bitterness of their lives.Chapter Two focuses on the remembering process on the collective level.Based on the recognition proposed by Paul Ricoeur as a way of remembering,this chapter,on ones side,explores in The Buried Giant how Axl recognizes himself as a soldier in individual level and how the nations reclaim the disastrous memories of genocide in the collective level,so as to see how memory affects the identity and the truth of history in both individual and collective levels.On the other side,in Never Let Me Go,even denied and ignored by human,the clones cling tightly on the memories of Hailsham,where they were brought up.For the clones,they almost have no say about their lives and fates.They have nothing left except their memories.Therefore,through conducting mutual recognition and sharing their happy childhood memory in Hailsham,they manage to affirm their existence and to seek for a refuge where they can get comfort as well as warmth for the last days of their short lives.Chapter Three pays attention to the last part of the work of memory--collective release.At the end of his book,Ricoeur offers the concepts of difficult forgiveness and happy memory as the forms of release,by which the victims could get out of the past traumatic events.In The Buried Giant,when the she-dragon was slaughtered,the agonizing memories were aroused.But because the forced forgetfulness lack the necessary memory for difficult forgiveness,the crime committed by the Britons will not be forgiven,namely the unforgiveness.And a much more catastrophic war between the two nations will break out.While in the Never Let Me Go,the clones are not trapped at grudge,for life is too short to hate.Therefore,they try everything to recollect the happy memories to seek for refuge and hope for their last days,which shows a collective forgiveness.Through a detailed analysis of the work of collective memory--collective forgetting,collective remembering and collective release in these two novels,what can be learned is that memory can bring both disasters and comforts.By combining text analysis and the current complex ethnic historical entanglements,this thesis attempts to provide a reference for how to deal with collective memories properly for nations. |
