Trauma In Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View Of Hills

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most distinguished contemporary English novelists. His unique features, such as plot with mixed time and space, ambiguity in narration, especially traumatic characteristics in his works, make his works win widespread recognition. A Pale View of Hills is Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel; however, it receives less critical attention and is under the glories of The Remains of the Day. In fact, Kazuo Ishiguro paid attention to the theme of trauma in his debut novel, using the form of the protagonist’s recalling past and gradually revealing their trauma. This thesis explores the trauma in Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel A Pale View of Hills by using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory and trauma theory(including post-Freudian trauma theory), contemporary traumatic culture theory as well as the rhetorical narrative theory.This thesis includes three parts. The first part analyzes the child’s trauma from social and family aspects. This thesis further discusses child’s all sorts of odd behaviors after she is psychologically wounded, and her difficulty of psychological healing. At the same time, this thesis analyzes creation characteristics and artistic appeal of trauma novels according to the view of “four-dimension of the reader” in rhetoric narrative theory. The creative view of Kazuo Ishiguro will be discussed from the aspect of transgenerational phantom and crypt theory. The second part analyzes the social and personal reasons that cause Etsuko’s trauma. According to Freud’s psychoanalysis theory, Etsuko’s(Sachiko’s) psychological course and mental state when she makes mistakes will be discussed. With traumatic cultural theory, Etsuko’s attempt to realize her venting way of self-salvation through regretting the pain will also be discussed. Last but not the least, through the analysis of Ogata-San’s story, combined with the historical context in this novel, the educational and democratic roots of the war will be “limitedly” investigated. The ultimate root of trauma results from the war.The story in this novel still reminds people that caring about the healthy growth of children has its realistic significance. Besides, the deep reflection on the root of the war is necessary, which makes the novel with higher grade of thought.