National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
This article considers how Ishiguro’s 2015 novel about mass forgetting in post-Arthurian Britain adds to debates about what it means to be a human living within a society. There are four areas of enquiry linked by their emphasis on the interdependence of remembering and forgetting: ideas of memory i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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De Gruyter
2018-04-01
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| Series: | Open Cultural Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0004 |
| _version_ | 1819123958798090240 |
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| author | Charlwood Catherine |
| author_facet | Charlwood Catherine |
| author_sort | Charlwood Catherine |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article considers how Ishiguro’s 2015 novel about mass forgetting in post-Arthurian Britain adds to debates about what it means to be a human living within a society. There are four areas of enquiry linked by their emphasis on the interdependence of remembering and forgetting: ideas of memory in nationhood; the depiction of the British landscape; the cognitive process of recognition; and the emotional aspects of remembering. Interdisciplinary in scope, this article uses evidence from psychological studies of memory alongside detailed close readings of the text, allowing a more precise analysis of the role of the narrator and the effect of Ishiguro’s text on the reader. By keeping his previous corpus in view throughout, it evaluates Ishiguro’s continued use of memory and nationality as themes, while demonstrating the new departures offered by the conjunction of an ancient setting and a contemporary reading audience. One of the first sustained critical efforts on The Buried Giant, this article puts the novel firmly on the agenda of literary, cultural and memory studies respectively. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T07:16:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-99bf8d5909f74d65aa4f253cb83624e5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2451-3474 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T07:16:37Z |
| publishDate | 2018-04-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Cultural Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-99bf8d5909f74d65aa4f253cb83624e52022-12-21T18:34:23ZengDe GruyterOpen Cultural Studies2451-34742018-04-0121253810.1515/culture-2018-0004culture-2018-0004National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried GiantCharlwood Catherine0Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UKThis article considers how Ishiguro’s 2015 novel about mass forgetting in post-Arthurian Britain adds to debates about what it means to be a human living within a society. There are four areas of enquiry linked by their emphasis on the interdependence of remembering and forgetting: ideas of memory in nationhood; the depiction of the British landscape; the cognitive process of recognition; and the emotional aspects of remembering. Interdisciplinary in scope, this article uses evidence from psychological studies of memory alongside detailed close readings of the text, allowing a more precise analysis of the role of the narrator and the effect of Ishiguro’s text on the reader. By keeping his previous corpus in view throughout, it evaluates Ishiguro’s continued use of memory and nationality as themes, while demonstrating the new departures offered by the conjunction of an ancient setting and a contemporary reading audience. One of the first sustained critical efforts on The Buried Giant, this article puts the novel firmly on the agenda of literary, cultural and memory studies respectively.https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0004memory studiesnarrativekazuo ishiguro |
| spellingShingle | Charlwood Catherine National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant Open Cultural Studies memory studies narrative kazuo ishiguro |
| title | National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant |
| title_full | National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant |
| title_fullStr | National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant |
| title_full_unstemmed | National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant |
| title_short | National Identities, Personal Crises: Amnesia in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant |
| title_sort | national identities personal crises amnesia in kazuo ishiguro s the buried giant |
| topic | memory studies narrative kazuo ishiguro |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0004 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT charlwoodcatherine nationalidentitiespersonalcrisesamnesiainkazuoishigurostheburiedgiant |