Samurai Ethics in the Works of Kazuo Ishiguro

Samurai Ethics in the Works of Kazuo Ishiguro

Author: Lynn Bay

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 3656364583

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 3,0, University of Würzburg (englische Literaturwissenschaft), language: English, abstract: Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro is not very fond of critics concentrating on Japanese elements in his works , however, his first short stories and the following two novels take place – even if, as it is the case with A Pale View of Hills, only partly– in Japan, making it hard not to concentrate on the writer ́s apparent preoccupation with his Japanese heritage. His third novel, featuring an English setting and characters – an old mansion, a butler, and his employer, may have been viewed as an attempt to break away from this line of interpretation on the one hand, on the other, however, it was the one work which first merited a mention of the similarities between the butler ́s philosophy of life and the samurai code of honour. To the author, though, his three novels, namely A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, and The Remains of the Day, are linked primarily by their characters, who all seem to be stuck in similar situations, having to face their past – in all three cases the past ultimately revolves around their choices before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War – and consequently struggle with their long-repressed feelings of regret and even shame... Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Samurai Ethics in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro 2.1. Samurai Ethics – An Overview 2.2. The Position of Woman – Ishiguro’s Female Characters 2.3. Suicide 2.4. The Duty of Loyalty 2.4.1. Filial Piety 2.4.2. Teacher-Student relationship 2.4.3. Loyalty to the Master 2.4.4. Serving a Higher Purpose 2.5. Self-Control 2.6. Ishiguro’s Imaginary Homeland(s) 3. Conclusion 4. Bibliography


Kazuo Ishiguro and Ethics

Kazuo Ishiguro and Ethics

Author: Laura Colombino

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-12-09

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1040263143

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Kazuo Ishiguro and Ethics addresses the philosophical issues that lie at the heart of Ishiguro’s fiction, shedding light on the moral condition of his characters – their sense of responsibility and pride in service, their attempts at self-determination and the value they assign to loyalty, love and friendship. Ethics in Ishiguro’s work is structured around the tension between the limits of the characters’ agency and their striving towards the good. Ishiguro’s novels are shown to tackle fundamental questions posed by ancient Greek philosophers, especially Plato, and modern Western ones, from Adam Smith through Jean-Paul Sartre to Martha Nussbaum. What is the human soul? What is dignity? What does it mean to be human? These issues are expressed in his narrative world through the universal and timeless language of myths, allegories and images that are both ancient and modern as well as cross-cultural.


Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

Author: Barry Lewis

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2024-07-30

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1526185865

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How Japanese is Ishiguro? What role does memory and unreliability play in his narratives? Why was The Unconsoled (1995) perceived to be such a radical break from the earlier novels?. The first complete study to consider all of Ishiguro's work from A pale view of the hills (1982) to When we were Orphans (2000), including his short stories and television plays. Explores the centrality of dignity and displacement in Ishiguro's vision, and teases out the connotations of home and homelessness in his fictions. Invaluable for students at all levels, especially as The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro is a set text at GCSE and A Level.


Two-World Literature

Two-World Literature

Author: Rebecca Suter

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2020-05-31

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0824882377

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this study, Rebecca Suter aims to complicate our understanding of world literature by examining the creative and critical deployment of cultural stereotypes in the early novels of Kazuo Ishiguro. “World literature” has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years: Aamir Mufti called it the result of “one-world thinking,” the legacy of an imperial system of cultural mapping from a unified perspective. Suter views Ishiguro’s fiction as an important alternative to this paradigm. Born in Japan, raised in the United Kingdom, and translated into a broad range of languages, Ishiguro has throughout his career consciously used his multiple cultural positioning to produce texts that look at broad human concerns in a significantly different way. Through a close reading of his early narrative strategies, Suter explains how Ishiguro has been able to create a “two-world literature” that addresses universal human concerns and avoids the pitfalls of the single, Western-centric perspective of “one-world vision.” Setting his first two novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and An Artist of the Floating World (1986), in a Japan explicitly used as a metaphor enabled Ishiguro to parody and subvert Western stereotypes about Japan, and by extension challenge the universality of Western values. This subversion was amplified in his third novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), which is perfectly legible through both English and Japanese cultural paradigms. Building on this subversion of stereotypes, Ishiguro’s early work investigates the complex relationship between social conditioning and agency, showing how characters’ behavior is related to their cultural heritage but cannot be reduced to it. This approach lies at the core of the author’s compelling portrayal of human experience in more recent works, such as Never Let Me Go (2005) and The Buried Giant (2015), which earned Ishiguro a global audience and a Nobel Prize. Deprived of the easy explanations of one-world thinking, readers of Ishiguro’s two-world literature are forced to appreciate the complexity of the interrelation of individual and collective identity, personal and historical memory, and influence and agency to gain a more nuanced, “two-world appreciation” of human experience.


Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

Author: Wai-chew Sim

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-10-16

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1135198683

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Kazuo Ishiguro's writing has rapidly gained global recognition since his first publication in 1981. This guidebook offers a biographical survey of Ishiguro’s literary career, an introduction to his novels, plays and short stories, as well as an accessible overview of the contexts and many interpretations of his work. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume cross-references thoroughly between sections and presents useful suggestions for further reading.


Pictures from the Water Trade

Pictures from the Water Trade

Author: John David Morley

Publisher: St Martins Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9780312135874

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The author describes his experiences as a student in Japan and offers an inside look at the nightclubs and geisha bars of Tokyo


The Pocket Hagakure

The Pocket Hagakure

Author: Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1611806992

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The definitive translation of the seminal treatise on the code of the samurai. Living and dying with bravery and honor is at the heart of Hagakure, a series of over 1,300 short texts written by eighteenth-century samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo. These texts illuminate the classic Japanese concept of bushido (the Way of the Warrior), which dictated how samurai were expected to behave, conduct themselves, live, and die. Acclaimed translator William Scott Wilson has selected and translated here three hundred of those texts to create an accessible distillation of this guide, making it one of the most thorough and astonishing windows into the captivating world of the samurai available. This edition includes an introduction that delves into the Zen concept of muga, or “death” of the ego, giving an in-depth historical and philosophical background for the more metaphorical reading of Hagakure that is based on Tsunetomo’s reference to bushido as “the Way of death.” Through this lens, which has held a morbid fascination for readers through the years, the classic takes on a fresh and nuanced appeal. This book was previously published under the title Hagakure. This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series. The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.


Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words

Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words

Author: Anna Wierzbicka

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997-08-07

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0195088360

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This work demonstrates that every language has its "key concepts" (expressed in key words) and that these concepts reflect the core values of the culture in question. Examining empirical evidence from five lanuages, and using its own "natural semantic metalanguage" to provide an analytical framework, it shows that cultures can be revealingly studied, compared and explained to outsiders through their key concepts.


Conversations with Kazuo Ishiguro

Conversations with Kazuo Ishiguro

Author: Kazuo Ishiguro

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781934110621

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nineteen interviews conducted over the past two decades on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond with the author of the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day


The Ethics of Identity

The Ethics of Identity

Author: Kwame Anthony Appiah

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-10-03

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 069125477X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A bold vision of liberal humanism for navigating today’s complex world of growing identity politics and rising nationalism Collective identities such as race, nationality, religion, gender, and sexuality clamor for recognition and respect, sometimes at the expense of other things we value. To what extent do they constrain our freedom, and to what extent do they enable our individuality? Is diversity of value in itself? Has the rhetoric of human rights been overstretched? Kwame Anthony Appiah draws on thinkers through the ages and across the globe to explore such questions, developing an account of ethics that connects moral obligations with collective allegiances and that takes aim at clichés and received ideas about identity. This classic book takes seriously both the claims of individuality—the task of making a life—and the claims of identity, these large and often abstract social categories through which we define ourselves.