A Study On Doubles In Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View Of Hills

As the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature,Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most influential writers in contemporary literature.His debut novel A Pale View of Hills is an excellent British literary work based on memory narratives,which enjoys high literary value in both narrative structure and content writing.Drawing on Robert Rogers’ s and Otto Rank’s Literary Double theory and Miller’s repetition theory,this paper attempts to discuss the identity of the protagonist Etsuko from the perspective of character doubling,the relationships between repetition elements,repetition modes and doubles,so as to interpret the implied character doubles in the novel,and study the construction and exploration of Etsuko’s identity.First of all,the thesis focuses on the analysis of character doubling in the novel,including manifest doubles and latent doubles.Through the investigation of multiple sets of doubles,it reveals that Etsuko constructs her identity through memories weaving multiple selves,demonstrating the confrontation between the good and evil aspects of human nature.Then,it interprets the three repetition elements closely related to the doubles in the novel,including the repetition of verbal elements,the repetition of scenes and events,such as the scenes of ruins after World War II and children murder cases,and the repetition of motifs concerned with memory and loneliness,so as to explore the complex psychological changes of Etsuko and her identity anxiety.Based on the two modes proposed by Miller,namely the Platonic repetition and the Nietzsche repetition,it discusses the repetition between the gloomy scenes of Etsuko holding a rope and lantern,as well as the woman’s drowning the infant and Sachiko’s drowning the cat,further explaining that Etsuko completes the deconstruction of the new identity through the gradual overlap of identities,achieves her self-reconciliation,and then finds her lost self.The thesis attempts to unveil that Etsuko constructs and deconstructs the doubles through the memory to escape her inner guilt in the grand historical context of World War II,and finally accomplishes her quest for self and spiritual salvation.