Melancholia & Metaphor in Kazuo Ishiguro's <i>The Remains of the Day</i>

<p>Critics widely acknowledge the psychological grounding of Kazuo Ishiguro's writing. His 1989 novel The Remains of the Day presents a central character deeply afflicted by his inability to acknowledge his condition. Both literal and figurative loss proliferates throughout the novel, and turning to Sigmund Freud's influential essay, "Mourning and Melancholia," allows us to understand how loss influences Stevens's narrative. In this essay, Freud explores conditions that result after the loss of person or an ideal. For Stevens, the lost object is the myth of pre-war English traditions. Freud's theories regarding melancholia provide a crucial insight to Stevens's inability to acknowledge the larger significance of the many losses he experiences. Instead, Stevens relies on a certain set of metaphors to avoid confronting his loss and critically examining his limited subjectivity. By reading Stevens as a Freudian melancholic, we can better understand how and why Stevens constructs a narrative that fails to provide a moment of revelation. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Teston, Kristin Lasheaú

Contributors dc:contributor

• Monika Gehlawat
• Martina Sciolino
• Charles Sumner

• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/565

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1640