Retrieving The Hidden Memory

Kazuo Ishiguro,a Japanese-born British novelist,is the winner of the Booker Prize which is known as a prestigious award in England and has been deemed as one of the leading literary figures amongst the writers in the contemporary world ever since.Brimming with the tint of melancholia and nostalgia,The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro is dedicated to the search for lost memory,identity,and reflective introspection on the international themes.However,Kazuo Ishiguro uses fantasy as a mirror to inspect the history of human beings and allude to some significant events of the contemporary society in the past half century for a de-political purpose and thus the novel is filled with philosophical and allegorical meanings.Based on Walter Benjamin’s modern allegorical theory,this thesis is intended to reveal the modern allegorical meanings in The Buried Giant.First,from the modern allegorical perspective by Walter Benjamin,the thesis is intended to analyze the philosophical and moral implications under the gaze of melancholy in The Buried Giant from three aspects: the melancholic state of atmosphere,the melancholic state of mind and the powerlessness to the uncoordinated predicaments in the modern civilization.From the analyses,the disappointed and melancholic attitude of Kazuo Ishiguro towards the modern society will be discussed.Second,the thesis is proposed to investigate the novel’s quality of fragmentation,which is the most distinctive feature of modern allegory with the combination of analyzing the expressive forms and techniques employed by Kazuo Ishiguro.Based on the re-interpretation of allegory by Walter Benjamin,this part will include three aspects: the ambiguity of the text,the fragmented characters and the fragmented discourse conveyed in the novel.Last,the thesis will look into Kazuo Ishiguro’s serious contemplations on how to realize the redemption of human beings through analyzing the novel’s implications on the attitude to treat the afflicting history between nations and the redemption of true love and friendship.All in all,to read The Buried Giant from the modern allegorical theory will serve as an attempt to better understand the essential connotations embedded in The Buried Giant from a new perspective and stimulate us to think of the real plight confronting the modern civilization.