A Study Of The Ethical Dignity Of Ono In An Artist Of The Floating World

The narration strategies in Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World has been well explored. However, critics pay more attention to the narrative unreliability of the novel, making the explanation through the method of ethical literary criticism blank. The paper studies the ethical dignity of the protagonist, Ono, of the novel through the text-based approach.The paper is mainly composed of five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, including life and works of Ishiguro, literature review, basic concepts of ethical literary criticism, aims and significance of the thesis and framework of the thesis. Chapter Two analyzes the ethical pursuit of dignity in the novel. By understanding the physical and psychological meanings of dignity better, people are able to comprehend the function of ethical encouragement of dignity to Ono. Chapter Three examines the ethical dilemmas of Ono along on his way of pursuing the career and patriotic dream along his life. The desire of gaining more reputation as a successful artist collides the fact that he has to be dutiful to his parents and sensei; the wish of being loyal to Japan militarism after Japan is defeated goes against the second daughter’s marriage; the new western ideas almost replace the traditional culture. Chapter Four probes the ways of Ono to deal with the situation. At first in order to deceive himself, he stresses his once reputation before the war and defends for similar characters from blames. Yet later he is forced to confess his mistakes and gains only a little dignity as a father to arrange the daughter’s marriage successfully. The last chapter is the conclusion, making conclusions of former parts.This thesis is to figure out the teaching purpose of the novel through ethical literary criticism:people cannot be too careful to make big decisions, especially those taking important roles in society, because the situation may change next minute.