Subversion And Containment

Kazuo Ishiguro(1954-)is one of the most famous contemporary British immigrant writers and is also the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for literature.Compared to other writers,his works are more international and aim to create similar feelings and resonances among readers from different cultures.The Remains of the Day(1989)is a novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published in 1989.It is about the six-day driving of an English butler,Stevens.The novel is mainly carried out in two lines: one is what he saw and heard during the journey;the second is Stevens’ recalling about career before and after World War II in the Darlington Hall.The novel is narrative style,which hides the profound meaning of morality and sense of responsibility under the exquisite language,and makes an extremely profound study of human nature,society and history.As a Japanese descent,Kazuo Ishiguro chooses to examine European countries and set the historical context before and after the World War II,which give the novel a wider scope to study.Different from other studies based on narratology and post-colonial theory,this thesis interprets this novel from the perspective of New Historicism.It puts the discourse and psychology of the characters in the novel in the paradigm of social power operation to explore the textual meaning suppressed by power.This thesis consists of four chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces the writer Kazuo Ishiguro and his master work The Remains of the Day,reviews the main research achievements at home and abroad and expounds the research methods and research framework of this thesis.The second and third chapters are the main part of the thesis.The second chapter mainly combines the relevant theories of subversion and explores how the characters subverted the authoritative ideology to explain the influence of historical development on thought in various aspects.The study suggests that The two World Wars changed the way they thought,which made Lord Darlington and Stevens try to break the mainstream Victorian culture.Stevens’ breakdown of social hierarchy and the germination of women’s sense of independence in the novel were both influenced by the process of industrialization.The third chapter focuses on the self-containment of the characters to explain the reasons for their subversion failure and its positive significance.The study finds that while individuals are trying to subvert the old history,they are often contained by the mainstream consciousness of the history.However,those who are in the suppression of the power system can also complete the process of self-shaping at the same time.Therefore,the entrenched hierarchy and Victorian values made these characters compromise with their fate,and their struggle ended in failure.By tying the fates of the characters to history,the author aims to criticize the conservatism of the British government and the hypocrisy of Victorian values.But their subversion was not completely negative,in which the characters also formed more rational images.Finally,this study illustrates a series of spiritual crisis experienced by the British people after the myth of the British empire was broken,and also expresses a series of reflections on the development and changes of the British society after the World War II.Besides,the research also expresses the author’s view of history,that is,history is theresult of choice,but the responsibility is more important than choice.