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1 results

  • 12 - Ethics and Agency in Ishiguro’s Novels

  • from Part III - Ethics, Affect, Agency, and Memory
  • Edited by Andrew Bennett, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Kazuo Ishiguro
    Published online:
    16 March 2023
    Print publication:
    23 March 2023, pp 187-199

  • Summary

    This chapter argues that Ishiguro’s novels frame ethical issues through questions of agency. Hannah Arendt’s ideas about agency and action provide a way to understand this in detail: for Arendt, speech and action reveal ‘who’ the speaker is, and shows their involvement with the ‘web of human relationships’ and the ramifications of their actions; the representation of action is inextricable from style and form. Using these ideas, the chapter demonstrates that there are significant changes over Ishiguro’s work: the first three novels concern reflections on past actions; the second three explore different conditions of agency in both content and in style; the two most recent novels deal with the impact and risks of actions and reactions. This also illuminates two recognizable literary devices used by Ishiguro: the way his characters ‘project’ themselves onto others, and what he calls the ‘dream grammar’ in relation to some aspects of his prose and plotting.