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Kazuo Ishiguro’nun Günden Kalanlar Romanında Anlatı Güvenilmezliğinin İmaları

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 3, 1050 - 1057, 02.07.2019
https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.494857

Abstract

Bu çalışmada, Kazuo Ishiguro‟nun Günden Kalanlar (1989) romanında hakim olan anlatı güvenilmezliğinin retorik-odaklı anlatıbilim çerçevesinde, özneleşme kavramına odaklanarak incelenmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Romanın iç anlatıcısı, yaşlanmakta olan uşak Stevens, güvenilmez anlatıcı tanımına problemsiz olarak uymaktan çok uzaktır. Bu yüzdendir ki, romanda anlatı güvenilmezliği kullanımı, ulusal kimlik ve İngilizlik gibi temel temalarla bir arada incelenmelidir, çünkü Stevens‟ın anlatımı aracılığıyla bunlara benzer üstanlatıların birer kurgu olduğu açığa çıkarılabilmektedir. Romanda tartışılan başka bir konu ise, kaçamaklı, yetkisiz, bastırılmış ve gizleyici olarak sorunsallaştırılan anlatı işinin kendisidir. Stevens‟ın anlatımı son derece geriye dönüktür; yanlızca Lord Darlington‟un hizmeti altındayken geçen „muhteşem‟ günleri yeniden yadetmek için değil, aynı zamanda kendi kimlik anlayışını bu „muhteşemlik‟ temeline kurmak için geçmişe bakmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, Günden Kalanlar‟da güvenilmez anlatıcıya yer verilmesinin çeşitli işlevleri ele alınarak, anlatının sakınılması veya baskılanması, hafızanın yanılabilirliği ve benlik ile ulusal kimliğin parçalanması yoluyla belirgin hale gelen Stevens‟ın güvenilmezliğinin belirli çıkarımlarına ulaşmak mümkündür.

References

  • Booth, W. C. (1991). The Rhetoric of Fiction. New York: Penguin.
  • Chatman, S. (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Derrida, J. (1973). Difference. Speech and Phenomena and other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, tr. David B.Allison. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 129–60.
  • IMPLICATIONS OF NARRATIVE UNRELIABILITY IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S THE REMAINS OF THE DAY 1057
  • Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
  • Guth, D. (1999). Submerged Narratives in Kazuo Ishiguro‟s The Remains of the Day. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 35(2), 126-37.
  • Ishiguro, K. (1989). The Remains of the Day. London: Faber and Faber.
  • Lewis, B. (2000). Kazuo Ishiguro. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
  • Parkes, A. (2001). The Remains of the Day: A Reader’s Guide. New York and London: Continuum.
  • Phelan, J. (2005). Rhetorical Approaches to Narrative. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Eds. David Herman, Manfred Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan. New York: Routledge, 500-504.
  • Phelan, J. (2007a). Rhetoric/Ethics. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Ed. David Herman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 203-216.
  • Phelan, J. (2007b). Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability and the Ethics of Lolita, Narrative, 222-38.
  • Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1990). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London:Routledge.
  • Rushdie, S. (17 Aug. 2012). Salman Rushdie: rereading of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Web.
  • Ryan, M. L. (2011). Meaning, Intent and the Implied Author. Style 45(1), 29-47.
  • Shaffer, B. (2008). Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro. Columbia: University of South Caroline Press.
  • Su, John J. (2002). Refiguring National Character: The Remains of the British Estate Novel. Modern Fiction Studies, 48, 552-80.
  • Teo, Y. (2014). Kazuo Ishiguro and Memory. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hamshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Wall, K. (1994). The Remains of the Day and Its Challenges to Theories of Unreliable Narration. Journal of Narrative Technique, 24, 18-42.
  • Wong, C. F. (2005). Kazuo Ishiguro. Horndon, Tavistock, Devon: Northcote House Publishers Ltd.

Implications of Narrative Unreliability in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 3, 1050 - 1057, 02.07.2019
https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.494857

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyse the predominating narrative unreliability in Kazuo Ishiguro‟s The Remains of the Day (1989) within the framework of rhetorical narratology with a specific focus upon the notion of subjectivity. The homodiegetic narrator, the ageing butler Stevens, is far from fitting unproblematically into the definition of unreliable narrator. The exploration of the employment of narrative unreliability in the novel must, therefore, be aligned with central themes like the national identity and Englishness precisely because it is through Stevens‟s narration that these grand narratives can be revealed as fiction. What is at issue in the novel is also the very act of narration itself, which is problematized as evasive, nonauthoritative, repressed, and obfuscating. Stevens‟s narration is profoundly retrospective, looking backwards not only to retrieve the past memories of „great‟ days in the service of Lord Darlington, but also to base his own subjectivity upon this „greatness‟. In this respect, by dealing with various functions of the use of an unreliable narrator in The Remains of the Day, it is possible to come up with certain implications of Stevens‟s unreliability that is rendered manifest by means of evasion or repression of narration, fallibility of memory, and disintegration of subjectivity and national identity.

References

  • Booth, W. C. (1991). The Rhetoric of Fiction. New York: Penguin.
  • Chatman, S. (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP.
  • Derrida, J. (1973). Difference. Speech and Phenomena and other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, tr. David B.Allison. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 129–60.
  • IMPLICATIONS OF NARRATIVE UNRELIABILITY IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S THE REMAINS OF THE DAY 1057
  • Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
  • Guth, D. (1999). Submerged Narratives in Kazuo Ishiguro‟s The Remains of the Day. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 35(2), 126-37.
  • Ishiguro, K. (1989). The Remains of the Day. London: Faber and Faber.
  • Lewis, B. (2000). Kazuo Ishiguro. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
  • Parkes, A. (2001). The Remains of the Day: A Reader’s Guide. New York and London: Continuum.
  • Phelan, J. (2005). Rhetorical Approaches to Narrative. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Eds. David Herman, Manfred Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan. New York: Routledge, 500-504.
  • Phelan, J. (2007a). Rhetoric/Ethics. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Ed. David Herman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 203-216.
  • Phelan, J. (2007b). Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability and the Ethics of Lolita, Narrative, 222-38.
  • Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1990). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London:Routledge.
  • Rushdie, S. (17 Aug. 2012). Salman Rushdie: rereading of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Web.
  • Ryan, M. L. (2011). Meaning, Intent and the Implied Author. Style 45(1), 29-47.
  • Shaffer, B. (2008). Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro. Columbia: University of South Caroline Press.
  • Su, John J. (2002). Refiguring National Character: The Remains of the British Estate Novel. Modern Fiction Studies, 48, 552-80.
  • Teo, Y. (2014). Kazuo Ishiguro and Memory. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hamshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Wall, K. (1994). The Remains of the Day and Its Challenges to Theories of Unreliable Narration. Journal of Narrative Technique, 24, 18-42.
  • Wong, C. F. (2005). Kazuo Ishiguro. Horndon, Tavistock, Devon: Northcote House Publishers Ltd.
There are 20 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section English Language and Literature
Authors

Elif Toprak Sakız 0000-0002-1579-6967

Publication Date July 2, 2019
Submission Date December 10, 2018
Acceptance Date June 19, 2019
Published in Issue Year 2019 Volume: 18 Issue: 3

Cite

APA Toprak Sakız, E. (2019). Implications of Narrative Unreliability in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 18(3), 1050-1057. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.494857