1。1 Kazuo Ishiguro and His The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Japan and is now a famous British writer。 Till now, he has written lots of famous works and has won many great awards。 Ishiguro became famous when he was very young and he considers himself as an “international writer”。 As one of the most respectable writers in England, his works are typical of thought-provoking themes with concise language。

The Remains of the Day is his third book and he got the 1989 Booker Prize because of it。 Through first person narration, Stevens, as the main character in this novel, recalls his whole working career as a British butler in Darlington Hall。 During his journey, he recalls his past and tries to shape himself into a professional butler who devotes all himself to his career and his master。 He also believes that Lord Darlington, his old master, is a gentleman who makes great contributions to the world peace and the happiness of human beings。 His blind loyalty deprives him of his conscience and affections。 However, after finishing his journey, he gradually doubts about the essence of his old master and his working career。论文网

1。2 Research Object

This paper studies how narrative strategies are employed in describing the political and social background of the book, and what is the influence on shaping the main characters。 By analyzing them and studying the historical background described by the narrator with his subjective beliefs, we get closer to Stevens’ living circumstance and his inner world。 Then, we can have a better understanding of his characteristics, his life, and his choices。 We thus realize the main purpose of the writer and the theme of this novel。 Therefore, it is expected that this paper can do some researches on this angle so that we can deepen our understanding of the book, of the unique narrative skills used here and Ishiguro’ s international view on literary writing。

1。3 Research Approach

Stevens, as the protagonist and the main narrator, gives us many messages about history and politics of that time in his diary。 This paper mainly focuses on this aspect with the guidance of achievements from former researches and current narratology theory。 Through reading and studying the text carefully, specific narrative strategies used are discussed then。 This paper studies three main aspects of narrative strategies。 They are narrative perspective, time order and narrative level。 By further analyzing how these messages are conveyed by the author secretly, and what representation are used, the function of the messages on describing changes of Stevens’ inner world and his living environment is then exposed。

2 Literature Review

2。1 Previous Research at Home

It was not until 2002 that Kazuo Ishiguro and his works were admitted formally。 They have become really popular now。 However, as these works come to China so late, so far there haven’t been sufficient researches on his works, especially on The Remains of the Day。 

Early articles about The Remains of the Day briefly introduce Ishiguro’s themes of memory and international views and the characteristics of his works, especially first-person retrospective narration。 Zhiqing Zhong (1994) and Shijing Qu (1998) are typical ones who mainly study this area。 Since Ishiguro got some awards because of this book, more and more scholars and commentators give close attention to it, and more aspects are thus studied。 Till now, there have been only 83 papers about The Remains of the Day in China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and 44 of them are published journals。 

The narration of The Remains of the Day is really interesting and thus there are some papers researching narrative strategies of this book。 Papers written by Kunpeng Li (2010) and Chao Liu (2011) analyze this aspect from the structure and reliability of narration。 They show readers how the British gentleman tries to change the situation of Europe and his final tragic fate。 They also discuss Ishiguro’s writing characteristics on the existence of human beings and his concept of internalization。