An Analysis Of Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist Of The Floating World From The Perspective Of Homi K.Bhabha’s Post-Colonial Theory

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel laureate in literature of 2017 who remains a Japanese-born Briton novelist.His novel An Artist of the Floating World was published in 1986.The work is one teeming with Japanese characteristics.The masterpiece is a memoir of Mesuji Ono,depicting how Japan was faring from October 1948 to June 1950,after the Second World War(1939-1945).Before the war,western cultures were gnawing this land.After being defeated,Japan was devoured and colonized almost wholly by the US.At that time,its people was thrown into a crisis of national cultural identity.Analyzed from the perspective of post-colonialism by Homi K.Bhabha,the thesis delves into this crisis and the rebuilding process of cultural identities faced by the characters in the novel.This thesis consists of five parts.It starts with a brief introduction to the novelist and his works.In the light of mimicry theory,the first chapter discusses Japan’s failure in the emulation of western systems politically and culturally before the Second World War when western cultures were permeating through the country.It is concluded that what was born through the process of mimicry stifles the authority of Self.Besides,the predominant culture of Self can not apply to that of Other.Chapter two concerns the inevitable blending of cultures in the colony.Meanwhile,there occurred hybrid people,such as Ichiro,which happened to be the linchpin to react against colonization.With an identity of hybridity,a striking cultural difference was oozing out from the people in that time.Realizing this identity disparity,the Japanese people had cast doubt on its colonizer’s culture and was on the way to seek one of their own.Following this,chapter three moves further to elaborate on the characters in a disadvantaged position.It analyzes facing the US cultural aggression,how the Japanese interpreted mainstream cultures through Third Space from its own position,and how they had re-written them and sought after a balance to form its own culture girl.All these bring us to the conclusion:in a time when post-colonialism reigned,for culture to thrive,a polarity way of thinking may lead people nowhere.Rather,it has to be placed somewhere between its traditional roots and the prevailing ones brought by the colonizer.Hybrid characters constructed cultural identity at a space "in-between each other",playing down the sweeping cultures imposed by the colonizers,and most importantly,it is one in place to make a cultural voice heard loud.