The Loss And Quest Of His Own Home: A Spatial Interpretation Of The Remains Of The Day By Kazuo Ishiguro

Together with V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie, the British Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is called one of the “three giants of British immigration literature”, who is also a leading figure of contemporary British literary arena. In the more than thirty years after he entered British literary circle, Kazuo Ishiguro has established his mainstay status with only six novels – A Pale View of Hills(1982), An Artist of the Floating World(1984), The Remains of the Day(1989), The Unconsoled(1996), When We Were Orphans(2000) and Never Let Me Go(2005). The Remains of the Day published in1989 is Kazuo Ishiguro’s masterpiece, winner of the Booker Prize of that year. The novel graphically portrays the protagonist an aging British butler Stevens’ s six-day motoring expedition to the west in 1956. Since its release, scholars home and abroad have investigated the novel from the perspectives of post-colonialism, psychoanalysis, new-historicism, and narratology in particular unreliable narration. However, the space narrated in this novel is inclined to be neglected by the generality of critics. In the light of spatial criticism this thesis intends to interpret the loss and quest of Stevens’ s own home in three different spaces respectively, thus revealing the significance of space in the construction of one’s own homeland.This thesis is composed of six parts, namely, introduction, conclusion, and four chapters.The first chapter principally introduces the theoretical foundation of this thesis – spatial criticism. It summarizes the evolution of space’s concepts and then in detail introduces the social and postmodern orientation of spatial theories, including Henry Lefebvre’s viewpoint that “space is a social production” and spatial trialectics, Michael Foucault’s Heterotopia, Edward Soja’s Thirdspace, David Harvey’s Time-Space Compression and Fredric Jameson’s Hyperspace. It also points out the developments of the relationships of spatial criticism and literary studies.Chapter two analyzes the loss and quest of Stevens’ s own home from the perspective of physical space. The cramp and gloomy bedrooms in which Stevens and his father live at Darlington Hall, strictly prescribed work and activity areas such as the dark back corridor, stationary rooms and old laundry, in addition, the lawn, pavilion and sunset that haunts in Stevens’ s memory, and all those things reflect the loss of Stevens’ s own home in the real world. Stevens’ s journey to seek his own home provides him a chance to leave his dank room, lodge at comfortable inns, and admire Britain’s countryside scenery. All in all, his journey is imbued with adventure and sunlight.Chapter three probes into the loss and quest of Stevens’ s own home in social space. Half of Stevens’ s lifetime unfolds in Darlington Hall, a space of oppression and servility. Stevens completely defers to various orders from the Lord, silently endure unreasonable ridicule from other aristocrats, and later is reduced to a tool to testify and flaunt the long-standing of Darlington Hall. In the author’s pen, Stevens’ s power as a butler is minimized to the utmost, while the oppression and servility is magnified infinitely, which further demonstrates the loss of his own home. In the process of Stevens’ s quest, he is mistaken as a dignified butler due to his elegant demeanor and the limousine. Nonetheless, Stevens is in no hurry to take off his mask, which reflects his confusion in the course of building his own home. Finally, he has to reveal his true identity and choose to return to Darlington Hall after the shattering of his dream.Chapter four investigates the alterations of Stevens’ s mental space before and after his westward journey, which reflects his mood when losing home and his awakening during his quest. They are mainly embodied by his understanding on dignity and loyalty, as well as his attitude towards emotion. With regard to dignity, Stevens once endeavored to maintain it all the time, while Harry Smith’s elaboration on dignity makes Stevens reflect on his parochial notion; as for loyalty, Stevens changes it from blind to self-conscious; Stevens also choose to release the emotion he once inhibited.Based on the spatial interpretation of The Remains of the Day and taking Stevens’ s loss of his own home and failure of his quest as an example, the conclusion points out that the space people live in has an invisible and profound influence on their life. Provided that one have a true and correct understanding of himself, and adopts an appropriate attitude towards his surroundings, endless regret is likely to be evaded. Spatial criticism provides a new approach to interpret this classic novel, meanwhile, the author wishes to make modest contribution to the further development of studies on Kazuo Ishiguro.