Individual and collective memory in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day'

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5902/1679849X39338

Keywords:

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, Reliability, English literature, memory

Abstract

The novel(s) of Kazuo Ishiguro puts into question the human memory - the capacity, reliability, fallibility, and combustibility - as well as its representation in an individual, collective and cultural sphere. In The remains of the day (1989), Ishiguro confronts the reader with the figure of Stevens, who constructs a narrative of the “I” through a process of recollection. Given that Stevens's memory appears far distant from the recollections of other witnesses, to deal with the reliability of this character narrator in the reconstruction of a historical past becomes an issue. This paper intends to offer a reading on the theme of memory in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, The remains of the day, focusing on its individual and collective representation, this mainly through Maurice Halbwachs' theory of individual and collective memory. The dialogue demonstrates that the social dimension has an effect on how the protagonist recalls his own story and shapes the past of the Other(s).

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Author Biographies

Tiago Ferreira Pereira

Mestrado em Letras – Estudos Literários, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), bolsista CAPES.

Rosani Ketzer Umbach, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria

Professora Titular da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Departamento de Letras Estrangeiras Modernas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Pesquisadora CNPq.

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Published

2020-07-29

How to Cite

Pereira, T. F., & Umbach, R. K. (2020). Individual and collective memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s ’The Remains of the Day’. Literatura E Autoritarismo, (35). https://doi.org/10.5902/1679849X39338

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