Thinking Activity on An Artist of the Floating World

 

                             An Artist of the Floating World

                                                               By  Sir Kazuo Ishiguro

                              

                                                                     ( Sir Kazuo Ishiguro )

   Sir Kazuo Ishiguro , is a British novelist of Japanese origin and Nobel Laureate in Literature (2017). His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982. He now lives in London.

A graduate of the University of East Anglia, Ishiguro is one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors writing in English.AN ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD is his most famous novel.  

       

  

An Artist of the Floating World (1986) is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it.The novel is considered as both historical fiction and global literature.

Here I present Thinking Activity on this novel as my task let's start :-

        ____Thinking Activity on An Artist of the Floating World ____

Que_1  Sculpting Historiography as a Narrative technique in " An Artist of the Floating World ". Give your point of view on this narrative technique.

  The narrative of the novel has been set between october 1948 and June 1950.   "AN ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD" is a novel that told the story by first person narrative. Masuji Ono is narrator of the novel. In this novel we see sculpting historiography as a narrative technique. In which the word sculpting means creating or representing something by carving or other shaping techniques. Historiography means the writing of history. 

 In this novel we see Masuji Ono narrates his story by this sculpting historiography narrative technique. Masuji Ono create his life's image by edit some other elements. He not only tells about history but he also tells his memory. The past is lost for the time to come. 

But the snapshot of the past linger in the present. The character is trying to relocate himself while passed from the past memory to the present.  Ono's past is retrieved in the form of memory. In this Ishiguro's novel, protagonist Masuji Ono try to reconcile his personal memories with that of the history of the nation. 

In the novel we see he remembers incident which happened with him that incident now happened with someone. Like Kurodo's painting burnt by police and in Ono's childhood his father burnt the paintings. 

  

  This narrative technique is showing the past history and memory both. In the novel narrator connect his memory with the nation's history.                   

Que_2   The effect of the new culture on characters in the novel. Have you not is this kind of changes  how and where you not explain in detail .

Culture is a shared pattern of behaviour prevailing in a group or a society. It includes all the traditions, customs, beliefs and values that are transmitted from generation to generation and it can shape people. Thus, it can be summarized that culture is something commonly shared, transmitted and it has a role in shaping people. When another culture tries to penetrate into the existing culture, some problems arise among people living in that society. Postcolonial literature deals with such problems as estrangement, displacement, identity crisis, etc. Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the examples of the writers of postcolonial literature and he studieson the afarementioned themes in his books. An Artist of the Floating World is one of them.

In Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World, the influence of American culture which penetrates the lives of Japanese is obvious. That is the reason why the protagonist Ono feels estranged and displaced. 

Ono is a retired artist wwhose son has died in the war and who has two daughters,one of them ,Setsuko, is married. While Noriko, is a single.Second example of effect is when Noriko is talking about her marriage negotiation, it also shows the change. Negotiation for Noriko's marriage are places at the center of the novel. 

The first negotiation fails and results in the withdrawal of the suitor's family, the Miyakes. The changes that are the results of American influence make Ono feel estranged and displaced.Ono could buy the house as he is a respected artist.

 However, because of the change in economic structure, a materialistic society comes to the fore and their concept of money becomes something more honourable.

Que_3  How you see the political Representation in this novel ? Or there is nothing politically active in this novel ? Give your point of view and argument also.

The novel An Artist of the Floating World is based on the aftermath of the second world war. It raise significant doubts about the relationship between freedom and the city in its melancholy representation of lost urban community. The private memories of the character give us a glimpse of the historical events that shook the world without directly narrating him.

 The political accountability of the major protagonist is brought to focus in the reader's mind. Masuji Ono, a respectable artist of 1930s and an imperial protagonist remembers and reconsiders his past actions that pronounce him as a collaborator in disgrace.

 The very first line of the novel refers to the destruction caused by war. Politics and art represented in the novel.   The main protagonist, Masuji Ono, an artist, refuses to represent the real world while his imperialist mentor denies freedom of artistic expression to him. 

Ono's creativity is suppressed right from his childhood, first by his father and later by his mentor. His paintings burnt by his father and Mathsuda tell him to joining in nationalism. Ono's daughters Noriko and Setsuko are liberated women in comparison to their mother. Setsuko blame on his father and Noriko talks about her own marriage negotiation in presence of suitors family.

 The Japanese culture do not allow this kind of freedom, it is like a politics in society. 

Que_4 Give appropriate argument on " Memory , ethics, and the first person unreliable narrator" with special reference on " An Artist of the Floating World " .

In the novel "An Artist of the Floating World" we see the three major theme memory, ethics and the first person unreliable narrator. The narrator of this novel is unreliable due to the suppression of painful memories relating to their past. The ethical dimension is relevant to the contextual circumstances surrounding the text. 

This novel is tells the story of Masuji Ono a Japanese artist who dedicated much of his professional life to producing World War Two propaganda posters to aid the Japanese war effort. The narrative focuses on the retired Ono looking back on his life's mistake. 

Memory is about narrator's own past incidents. In the novel Ono memorised his past and tells us about his life. Ethics is at the forefront of such concerns, as the protagonist in novel makes ethical compromises for the supposed greater good. Unreliability is about narrative style of Ishiguro. Ono is unreliable narrator because the story is first person narrative.

Masuji Ono recalls his past throughout the novel. Ono rethinking about his past events its highlights his status as unreliable narrator. The narration reflects the concept that memory is processed through an individual's consciousness, making it subjective to that particular person. 

Ono is first person unreliable narrator and he recalls his memory and it arises ethical questions. We are not yet convinced with Ono's story because we are not there when all the things happened. In this novel we see this three memory, ethics and first person unreliable narrator.

Que_5  Explain in detail Features of the Narrator's Account and also explain Ono's attitude to his past explain in detail.

The story of the novel is narrated by Masuji Ono. He is unreliable narrator. Ono tells story about his past events and this narrative has three different features. This are digression, indirectness and incompleteness, metanarrative comments. The meaning of digression is some story or things beyond of subject. 

Ono like to become an artist but his father not interested in Ono's dicision. This mater Ono tells us when the paintings of Kuroda burnt by police. And he see this and tell us about his paintings which burnt by his father. Here we find the features of digression.  In the negotiation of Noriko's marriage Ono's elder daughter warn his father for careful discussion about marriage. She tells to his father that this time not misunderstand and mistake which happened by him as he do in past. In Setsuko's dialogue we see the indirectness and incompleteness about Ono's past events. 

Ono's narrative and reliability of his memory expressed both directly and indirectly. Ono's account mostly deals with narrator himself. Ono has attitude towards his own past. 

Ono 's attitude to the pre - war era, it discovers a struggle between two opposing forces : his nostalgia and his awareness of his own mistake. Ono 's nostalgic idea dislike modern Japan and specially the American culture. He also fears about his past that he do in the negotiation for his daughter's marriage. Setsuko warm him about his past.  Ono fails to direct account of his past events. He became unreliable narrator. 

We see there is some absence in Ono's narrative. Ono's attitude to Kuroda telling about his own past. Kuroda and Ono both 's painting burnt by someone. By connecting present events Ono trying to say about his mistakes and his good memories about his past.

Thank you...