The impact of the Second World War on Kazuo Ishiguro’s major characters in A pale view of hills, An artist of the floating world and The remains of the day

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro’s three novels--A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986) and The Remains of the Day (1989) have the Second World War as their background. The war affects both the winners and losers and the world is devastated and threatened with annihilation from atomic bombing. Rather than emphasizing historical accounts of the Second World War, Ishiguro wishes to make his readers see, through his major characters--Etsuko in A Pale View of Hills, Ono in An Artist of the Floating World and Stevens in The Remains of the Day, that the war has a major impact on their psyche. In A Pale View of Hills, Etsuko narrates her various difficulties during the post-war Japan, which cause her to move to England in order to achieve better opportunities. Though living far away from Japan, her mind still dwells in Nagasaki that she feels familiar with. An Artist of the Floating World demonstrates how Ono, an aging Japanese artist, copes with the political, social and traditional transformations of Japanese society after the war. In order to re-establish himself in the post-war Japan, Ono has to adjust himself to the new ideologies and also has to compromise with the younger generation. Experiencing the decline of the British Empire as well as the fall of British aristocracy, Stevens, in The Remains of the Day, has to adjust himself to the ideologies of the new world order, the U.S., represented by his American employer. Though the war and its detrimental effects keep haunting their present existence, these characters avoid talking about the trauma it has caused. This thesis will use Cathy Caruth’s proposal in Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History as a framework for its discussion. It will show how the Second World War affects the psyche of the major characters in the novel chosen and how these characters have to develop a coping mechanism in order to survive and to be relieved from traumatic symptoms caused by the war.