Identity Crisis And Cultural Hybridity In Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View Of Hills

Kazuo Ishiguro,the second immigrant writer after V.S.Naipaul to win 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature,is widely known for his unique narrative strategies and diverse themes.A Pale View of Hills,his first novel,was published in 1982.The novel centers on the memories of a Japanese immigrant named Etsuko who is now living alone in England.Previous studies on this novel have covered a wide range of topics,including unreliable narration,traumatic memory,post-colonialism,and identity.Regarding to identity studies,scholars and critics have attributed Etsuko’s identity crisis to personal reasons;however,few studies have made reference to the cultural reasons that caused Etsuko’s isolation.Therefore,this thesis,in light of Stuart Hall’s and Homi Bhabha’s theories of cultural identity,attempts to analyze identity crisis and cultural hybridity in the novel.Beginning with an introduction of Etsuko’s identity crisis,and followed by an analysis of the reasons for her seeking for cultural hybridity,this thesis ends with the conclusion that Etsuko succeeds in achieving cultural hybridity.Based on textual analysis and reference studies,this research finds that in fact,Etsuko’s unusual behaviors exactly demonstrate her identity crisis;and compared with common people,the reasons for immigrants’ identity crisis seem more complicated as it involves their struggle in between two different cultures.To portray Etsuko to be one who strikes a balance between two cultures to construct her hybrid identity successfully,Ishiguro seems to suggest that cultural hybridity,though not easy to achieve but to be negotiated between two cultures and constructed continuously,should be a necessity for immigrants experiencing identity crisis in the modern society.