摘 要

石黑一雄虽被誉为“英国文坛移民三剑客”之一，但他立志成为一名“国际主义作家”，并获得布克奖。代表作《长日留痕》以一位英国传统男管家六天驱车旅途中的讲述为主线，以第一人称视角呈现了主人公史蒂文斯的个人生活极其所处的宏大历史语境，其浓郁的历史意识使其作品超越了地域政治的因素。本论文借助创伤理论，深入解读石黑一雄笔下的史蒂文斯人物形象，从这一人物的创伤症状入手，通过家庭、爱情、职业、历史四个层面的具体分析，归纳主人公的受创原因，进而指出主人公通过地理空间的转换、叙述悲伤过往、向他人倾述等创伤恢复手段最终得以走出创伤，重建自我。从创伤理论视角解读主人公史蒂文斯这一人物形象，不但有助于深入挖掘史蒂文斯的心理机制，也可以加深对于石黑一雄作品审美意蕴和历史内涵的理解。

关键词：《长日留痕》；史蒂文斯；创伤理论；创伤；救赎

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 3
   1. An Introduction to the Trauma Theory 3
   2. Traumas of Stevens in The Remains of the Day 4
      1. Stevens’ Trauma Caused by his Incomplete Family 4
      2. Stevens’ Trauma Resulted from his Personal Experiences 5
      3. Stevens’ Trauma Induced by his Blind Pursuit of Dignity 7
      4. Stevens’ Trauma Generated from the Decline of the British Empire 8
   3. Trauma Recovery of Stevens in The Remains of the Day 9
      1. Stevens’ Transference of Physical Space 9
      2. Stevens’ Confession of Traumatic Past 10
      3. Stevens’ Re-connection of Oneself and Other People 11
3. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

Bibliography 14

Trauma and Recovery in The Remains of the Day

Introduction

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize winner and one of the most important immigrant writers in contemporary Britain, was awarded a lot of gorgeous prizes and enjoyed extensive popularity among Europe, America and Asia. The Remains of the Day, published in 1988, won him the 1989 Booker Prize, the British’s top literary award. He also wrote many excellent works, to name only a few, The Unconsoled (1995), Never Let Me Go (2005) and The Buried Giant (2015).

As Kazuo Ishiguro’s best-selling novel, The Remains of the Day takes us along Stevens’ s “motoring trip” to revisit Miss Kenton: from Darlington House to countryside, on the path to reflecting on his unswerving loyalty to Lord Darlington, his blind pursuit of dignity and his regret of the relationship with Miss Kenton and his father.

As an international writer, Ishiguro always combines time and space with equivocal narration based on historical backgrounds, such as the second World War, Nagasaki bomb attack, which characterizes his novels. Since 1960, Ishiguro’s family have emigrated to Britain and never turned back to Japan until 1989. Later, he acknowledged the alienation and regret stemmed from his childhood experience which exerted a great influence on his writing with the aim of unleashing melancholy and trauma. Additionally, the social work of Glasgow charity exposed him to the acquaintance with the under-privileged with psychological illness in society, which served as material of the traumatic character description in his works.

According to Kazuo Ishiguro’s work, domestic and abroad researches mainly focus on post colonization, new historicism, psychoanalysis, unreliable narration and the lack of identity. Carol Oates wrote “among of us, Kazuo Ishiguro is best at elucidating the theme of ‘loss’.” Salman Rushdie, an English writer, regarded it as “a graceful and cruel story.” As a masterpiece that makes Kazuo Ishiguro renowned over the world, The Remains of the Day has received wide critical attention and been studied from different

perspectives: character analysis, post-colonialism, psychological analysis, narrative