Memory's Fragile Power in Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and W. G. Sebald's "Max Ferber"

Fürst, Lilian R.

doi:10.1353/cli.2008.0003

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Catharsis, still resistant to comprehend exactly, underscores the relevance of memory and time, which entail blocking, persistence, and dubiousness. Furst (2007) remarks on the work of memory: "The assimilation of the concept of 'repression' testifies to the widespread acceptance of the role of the unconscious in our everyday experience of remembering and forgetting; selectivity, far from being random, may form a discernible pattern" (p. 530). Furst argues that the function of unconsciousness in an individual's life, as in Stevens' case, is significant and leads to a close connection between recalling and repression.…”

Section: Catharsis In the Remains Of The Daymentioning

confidence: 99%

Stevens’ Catharsis in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

GÜNGÖR

2023

İçtimaiyat

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Consideration of the relationship between Aristotle’s and Sigmund Freud’s catharsis theories is significant to revise its efficacy in literature. The view is that the concept of catharsis in literature represents a process of purification and clearing, in which all repressed emotions, desires, and anguish come to the surface and, in this way, they are all eliminated from the psyche. This study establishes a recursive relationship between catharsis theory and Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, The Remains of the Day. In this novel, Ishiguro narrates the story of an aging butler, Stevens, in disjointed periods and sporadic moments. Being full of regrets, Stevens reveals self-accustaions, mental repression, lack of objectivity, and fragmentation in moral, intellectual, and ethical senses. The Aristotelian and Freudian views on catharsis testify that the role of memory in Stevens’ case may form a discernible sample for purification. It has been confirmed that, being celebrated as a historically grounded book, The Remains of the Day exemplifies the true correlation between ‘telling’ and ‘release’ from a marginalized point of view.

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Section: Catharsis In the Remains Of The Daymentioning

confidence: 99%

Stevens’ Catharsis in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

GÜNGÖR

2023

İçtimaiyat

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“…As it is understood from the sentences of McPherson Ishiguro tries to create the disadvantages of the perfection concept through working class. As Lilian R. Furst (2007) claims that there is a kind of memory and flashback technique used almost all the pages of the book which takes the reader into the core of the occasions (p.535). Regarding the usage of the flashback technique in the book the quotations by Stevens can be exemplified that "…and I am pleased to say there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence by that time."…”

Section: The Biography Of the Writer And Its Effects On His Writingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Ishiguro, 1990b, 28) / "As I recall, then, it was only an hour or so after being first entrusted with the mission…" (Ishiguro, 1990b, p.62). Moreover, Furst (2007) states that the intense usage of the memory needs to be accepted as normal for the narration of the search of identity by thirty years old man (p.536). Hence, this applying to memory technique in the narration of Kazuo Ishiguro provides a sort of suspense to the reader in order to help the identification of the search of Stevens' self.…”

Section: The Biography Of the Writer And Its Effects On His Writingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching Identity In; The Remains of the Day and a Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

Tanrıtanır¹

2018

jisr

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Mankind is always in a search process in the materialistic world that the search has not only advantages but also disadvantages for human and nature. In fact, this search enables a more facilitated life and also opens the doors of a modern world. On the other hand, power-holders become greedier, they want more power and attack each other applying to nonhuman ways and wars. These nonhuman deeds put the post-war and pre-war victims in a despair and confusion. The despair and confusion create a curiosity in the human mind and lead him to search his existence. In addition, significant Japanese writer in English literature, Kazuo Ishiguro handles the searching identity issue in his novels. His narrators in his works are in a search for existence and they experience different experiences in this way. The purpose of this paper, at first, is to provide a wide research on the existentialist search of Stevens in The Remains of the Day. Then, Stevens' search will be handled together with the struggle of Etsuko to live as a part of English society as a self in A Pale View of Hills.

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“…As evident in the example above, Ishiguro setting the background of his works with historical fact is consistent with the 80s Post-modern writers' -reinterpretation of history by utilizing new types of historical narrative.‖ He leads -focus to an individual's diverse and personal history although the public history, represented by the highly discussed Second World War, was the main historical subject…a narrative technique of fragmented and severed temporality‖ [6]. Lilian R. Furst suggests that The Remains of the Day is a traditional post-modernist historical novel in the aspect that it utilizes -public memory, private history‖ [7]. Within this work, Steven's own history, his fractured and distorted history, is interlocked with the historical events that Great Britain had to face.…”

Section: Historicity and Mythologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical, Political and Personal Double Narrative: Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Go¹

2018

IJLLL

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This paper discusses the historical, political and personal double narrative inherent in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989). The first-person narrator, butler Stevens approaches self-awareness from double angles of time and space. Although Stevens and his country, the British Empire had lost its glory of the past and the nostalgia of its magnificent days, they still try to look positively into the present. Drawing on historicity and mythology, aristocratism and democracy, Stevens' nostalgia and self-awareness, Ishiguro implies that we are all butlers. This paper does not find greatness within past nostalgia but explores the way to dignity through historical, political, and personal self-awareness in the fast changing world of today.

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Memory's Fragile Power in Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and W. G. Sebald's "Max Ferber"

Cited by 8 publications

References 7 publications

Stevens’ Catharsis in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Stevens’ Catharsis in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Searching Identity In; The Remains of the Day and a Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

Historical, Political and Personal Double Narrative: Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

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