The Novels Of Kazuo Ishiguro In The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

This thesis is intended to explore Kazuo Ishiguro’s oeuvre, including A PaleView of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day, TheUnconsoled, When We Were Orphans, and Never Let Me Go from the perspective oftrauma theory. Employing first-person narration, these novels deal with thememories of their protagonists respectively. However, there is a disinclination onthe part of the characters in Ishiguro’s novels to discuss the past in unsparing details.The obscurity and diversion in the narration shows the narrators’ hesitation to beconfronted with the painful past, which identifies the characteristics of post-traumasyndrome. These narratives demonstrate the agony in the victims’ endeavor to evadethe ever-haunting past and highlight the powerful affects of the traumatic past.This dissertation investigates the trauma theme in individual, domestic andsocial dimensions. By applying various kinds of narrative strategies, such asunreliable narration, surrealist techniques, and detective story elements,Ishiguro has manifested the predicament faced by the characters twined bypainful experience, probing into the possibility of presenting and representingthe unspeakable tragedy in literature. This thesis studies the split personalityand fragmentary memory of the individual subjects and the consequentidentity crisis. Also it is devoted to figure out how the writer grapples with thedilemma of the trauma narrative, because while narrative is a way for victims totake control of their lives and accelerate healing and recovery, the transformation ofsuffering memory into narrative may dilute the precision and powerful nature of thetraumatic events. The traumatized protagonists are deprived of the natural warmthand care from the parents at a very young age, which affects them in their future lifeand distorts their comprehension and relational capacities. The vulnerability of marital relations and the tense relationships between family members in Ishiguro’sfiction manifest the social problems nowadays. The social and historical dimensionof trauma also deserves close attention, where those silenced and marginalized byoppression have been givenvoice. The traumatic history in Ishiguro’s novels will be inspected throughindividuals living the personal consequences of this history. In his novels, Ishigurodemonstrates the disparity between private memory and public history and depictsthe effects of historical change on the lives of the ordinary people. Along with that,the author takes the readers through the mistakes and conspiracy of an exploitativesystem, which aggravates individuals’ suffering.Ishiguro’s six novels demonstrate repression in modern society and showhis empathy and sympathy toward the ordinary. Ishiguro’s trauma narrative playsan important role in arousing the trauma awareness in this modern industrial societyfull of crises.