Abuses Of Memory:A Ricoeurian Reading Of Kazuo Ishiguro's Novels

Memory is one of the motifs that has obsessed Ishiguro throughout his writing career.In Ishiguro's novels,it's a common phenomenon that memory is abused by both individuals and communities under the conditions of big social change,which incurs reality distortion,split identity and even violence.Through the lens of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy on three different levels of abused memory and the related history,this thesis aims to analyze why and how personal and collective memory is abused and whether under the hegemonic and institutionalized abuse of memory,individuals and communities are able to know the accompanying symptoms like self-deception,shortsightedness and violence so as to rebuild personal as well as collective identity.This thesis is composed of five chapters.The first chapter introduces the author and his works,and Paul Ricoeur's philosophical thought on three figures of abuses of memory:blocked memory,manipulated memory,obligated memory.Based on When We Were Orphans,the second chapter from the aspect of psychological trauma and political injunction like imperialist expansion and the opium trade,intends to analyze the causes of the protagonist Banks's blocked memory and how that influences his rectification of reality.The third chapter deals with how Ono in An Artist of the Floating World survives identity crisis in the transitional period of Japan when memory is taught by the official and why he without further insight,is involved in another sinister social scheme.The fourth chapter focuses on two parties in The Buried Giant-the Britons and the Saxons who want to forget and who desire to remember the memory of violence after atrocity,and extends to discuss the possibility of reconciliation.In view of the earlier chapters,the fifth chapter concludes that the common radical reason of abusing memory lies in the contradiction between personal and collective identity.By exploring the theme of abused memory,Ishiguro shows his deep humanistic concern and holds dubious but hopeful attitudes towards the anagnorisis of human beings' fate.