Identity and the Ambivalent Force of Memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s "The Remains of the Day" and "When We Were Orphans"

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Kazuo Ishiguro and the “texture of memory”

2. Theoretical Framework: Autobiographical Memory and our Sense of Self
2.1 “Memory’s fragile power” and the Self: Psychological Perspectives on Identity and Memory
2.2 Fictions of Memory: Memory and Identity in Literary Discourse

3. Memory and Identity in The Remains of the Day
3.1 Setting Up Liminal Spaces - Dual Focalization and the Butler Stevens as a Nostalgic Anachronism in a Time of Change
3.2 Defining the (Interdependent) Self: Between ‘Great’ Idealism, Dignity, and Professional Identity
3.3 The Ambivalent Forces of Stevens’s Memory: Between Self-Deception and Self-Reflection
3.3.1 A Macabre Triumph: Self-Deception, ‘Sins of Bias’, and the Greater Cause
3.3.2 “What dignity is there in that?” - Insight, Self-Reflection, and the Deconstruction of Stevens’s Self-Narrative

4. Memory and Identity in When We Were Orphans.
4.1 Setting Up Liminal Spaces - Dual Focalization and Cultural Hybridity in the Case of Christopher Banks
4.2 The Orphan Self and a Mummified Childhood:Trauma, Restorative Nostalgia, and Idealist Detective Identity
4.3 Tracing Leads: The Fragile Force of Christopher Banks’s Memory
4.3.1 Encountering Dead Ends: Christopher’s Traumatic Memory and its ‘Sins’
4.3.2 A Detective Lead Astray: A Past Irretrievable, Frustration of Memory, and the Subversion of Identity

5. Conclusion: Of Trauma and Regret

Bibliography