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Disintegration of Family in Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills, The Unconsoled, When We Were Orphans and Nocturnes
Abstract
This paper addresses the theme of the family disintegration in the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro as a contemporary author whose line of thought is still developing. The way he approaches this theme is historicist as he builds on the past to reveal the impacts of the World War II on the family and show the effect of the interactions of the Orient with the Occident on it. It is also anti-capitalist as he seeks to unveil how money-grubbing has relegated family bonds to a subordinate position. These interactions make of his fiction a space where there is a plurality of views about what a family is. The core of his argument is that individualism has led to the geographical and emotional fracture of the family. Politics is introduced as a force that shakes its unity. His view about the status of the family is cosmopolitan as he goes beyond the geographical boundaries of Japan and England to reveal that the fragmentation of the family is placeless. It is everywhere. The methodology of analysis is primarily grounded on a close study of three novels (A Pale View of Hills, When We Were Orphans and The Unconsoled) and a collection of short stories (Nocturnes).
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