A Study About The ’Realms Of Memory’ In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Works

Influenced by family environment and personal immigration experience,Kazuo Ishiguro devotes himself to discuss the theme of ’memory’ in his works,especially the memory of warfare.His novels usually write in the form of memories,and is used to let them be tangible by carrier which is called ’site’,in order to recall and rethink the war.Meanwhile,Pierre Nora,a well-known French historian,has put forth the concept named ’realms of memory’,which involved all the categories that can carry the memories.These provided the potential for cross-sectional research between Kazuo Ishiguro’s works and the ’realms of memory’.All the novel texts which are quoted in this thesis take the two world war as background,and the main characters of the stories are also the people who lived through it.This thesis will analyze and discuss the ’realms of memory’ which are closely related to these characters,for demonstrating their thinking about the war and the insignificant human beings during the war.Building on this foundation,we try to make further analysis of how the several generations which related to the warfare can relieve the problems in their memories and the refactor sense of personal identification.This thesis will be divided into the following three parts.The first one is introduction,it introduces the relevant domestic and international researches about Kazuo Ishiguro,presenting the significance of this chosen topic and the innovations of this thesis.The second one is the main text which is divided into three chapters.The first chapter focus on ’realms of memory’ in When We Were Orphans,trying to analyze how the generation who born in the war-time to reduce the anxiety about identity dilemma and to settle with the pain from the warfare by ’realms of memory’;The second chapter focus on ’realms of memory’ in An Artist of the Floating World.trying to analyze how the generation who participated in the war to revise distorted the memories from war-time and to take the responsibility for war by the ’realms of memory’;The third chapter focus on The Remains of The Day,trying to analyze how the generation who gained lost after the war to take an objective view on the past glory and self-belief by ’realms of memory’.Finally,the third part of this thesis is the conclusion,it not only sums up with the previous sections,but also further notes:It’s true that ’realms of memory’ should be made to fight against forgetfulness and preserve memories,but if we overemphasis on its memorial function,it will draw the memories into the other extreme.Only we choose to face the history and the true memories,there will be the way to solve the problems about the identity dilemma.