On Non-Human Narrative In Klara And The Sun Of Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro is a famous contemporary Japanese-British novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017.His novel Klara and the Sun sets the background in the high-tech era,from the perspective of non-human Klara,and tells Klara’s transformation from non-human to “human” in her observation and communication with human beings.The thesis takes the narrative theory as the carrier to discuss the non-human existence,culture imagination and the national spirit.The first part mainly talks about the non-human narrative features,exploring Klara’s unique and marginal living conditions.This paper clarifies the connotation of non-human narrative and centers on explaining the perspective of non-human narrative as well as human pursuit in contemporary era.Her perspective is characterized by mechanization and presented in the form of defamiliarization.Because of her objective status in the human world,Klara’s subject often falls into passive absence and aphasia.In her intercourse with human beings,she experienced the transformation from utensils to adults,which is a kind of human pursuit.The second part focuses on the non-human national symbols and cultural imagination in the novel.The sun is not only a natural scenery,but also a symbol of non-human and Japanese national identity.Solar energy provides Klara with narrative power and highlights the unique significance of non-human elements to national imagination.Ishiguro choice the sun as an important narrative symbol,suggesting an emotional review of his old country Japan.The third part concentrate on the national spirit and the reflection of human nature in the non-human narration,and expounds the close relationship between non-human,natural science and human relations from three aspects of non-human perception which are identity implication and cultural metaphor.Contemporary people suffer from the poison of ecological pollution and science,so they even subvert the essence of human beings.However,nonhuman Klara makes an ethical behavior of being kind to human beings in the opposite way.Its essence is a call for humanism and a return of humanistic spirit.