Plights And Choices

As a writer devoted to the international writing,Kazuo Ishiguro always pays attention to the existential plights of people in different cultural backgrounds,in order to realize the universal value of literary works.This thesis focuses on The Buried Giant,the latest work of Kazuo Ishiguro,who is the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in2017.This fantasy novel is set in the post-Arthurian era when there are serious conflicts between the Briton and the Saxon.Kazuo Ishiguro shows various existential plights faced by the characters and the positive choices they make,which triggers readers to think about the whole social status and the survival state of human groups,thus having a high research value.The thesis,based on Sartre's existentialism,explores the similarities between Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant and Sartrean existentialism,analyzes existential plights confronted by the characters and positive choices made by the characters when in the face of the existential plights.Firstly,this thesis shows that characters suffer the severe environments and alienated interpersonal relations in the absurd world.Sartre divides existence into“being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself”.Characters as the “being-for-itself”,on one hand,suffer the survival threats of the “being-in-itself” including the severe natural environment and the unsettled social environment;on the other hand,they are alienated as “being-for-others” when under the “look” from family members,community groups and the other nation,thus confronting the “hell is others” relationship interwoven with love and hatred.Secondly,this thesis discusses positive choices characters made and corresponding responsibilities they bear when in existential plights.These characters are divided into three kinds: the elderly couple Axl and Beatrice,as the representative of the first group of people,choose to face the past betrayal and trauma in their marriage and family with love and forgiveness;the second kind of people,represented by Sir Gawain,chooses to protect peace through forgetting and self-deception to realize his life value as a knight loyal to his king,while sacrificing his personal emotional needs and justice.The third group,represented by warrior Wistan,chooses to uphold justice through hatred and revenge,but suffers conscience smiting for destroying peace and killing the weak.Theprotagonists suffer from the pain and struggle in the free choice and assume the responsibility that comes with the choice.Thirdly,the thesis explores the possibility for Gawain and Wistan,who represent the collective will,to truly transcend the ethical plight of peace and justice.Through further behavioral analysis of Gawain and Wistan,Kazuo Ishiguro conveys to the audience the universal value when in the face of the trauma of ethnic conflicts.That is only through forgiveness rather than forgetting can man achieve the authentic transcendence and embrace the future.Finally,this paper points out that by describing the plights of the characters under the fog of “peace”,Kazuo Ishiguro shows his concern for the people struggling for survival in the contemporary society with continuous ethnic conflicts and integration.It is through choosing to face the past of ethnic conflicts with love and forgiveness in existential plights that the authentic transcendence towards a peaceful future can be achieved.