Name:
Divya parmar
Paper:
The twentieth century Literature: From World war || to the end of the century
Roll number: 5
Enrollment number:
4069206420210024
Email id:
divyaparmar07012@gmail.com
Batch:
2021-23 M. A. Sem-2
Submitted to:
S. B. Gardi department of English, Maharaja krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar university.
➡️ Points to ponder:
1 Introduction:
2 About the writer
3 plot of the novel
4 Themes of the novel
5 conclusion
An Artist of the Floating world by Kazuo ishiguro:
Introduction:
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. He notices how his once great reputation has faltered since the war and how attitudes towards him and his paintings have changed. The chief conflict deals with Ono's need to accept responsibility for his past actions, rendered politically suspect in the context of post-War Japan. The novel ends with the narrator expressing goodwill for the young white-collar workers on the streets at lunch break. The novel also deals with the role of people in a rapidly changing political environment and with the assumption and denial of guilt.
➡️About the writer: Kazuo ishiguro:
Kazuo Ishiguro, in full Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, (born November 8, 1954, Nagasaki, Japan), Japanese-born British novelist known for his lyrical tales of regret fused with subtle optimism. In 2017 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his works that “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” In 1960 Ishiguro’s family immigrated to Great Britain, where he attended the universities of Kent (B.A., 1978) and East Anglia (M.A., 1980). Upon graduation he worked at a homeless charity and began to write in his spare time. He initially gained literary notice when he contributed three short stories to the anthology Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers (1981).
Ishiguro’s first novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), details the postwar memories of Etsuko, a Japanese woman trying to deal with the suicide of her daughter Keiko. Set in an increasingly Westernized Japan following World War II, An Artist of the Floating World (1986) chronicles the life of elderly Masuji Ono, who reviews his past career as a political artist of imperialist propaganda. Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day (1989; film 1993) is a first-person narrative, the reminiscences of Stevens, an elderly English butler whose prim mask of formality has shut him off from understanding and intimacy. With the publication of The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro became one of the best-known European novelists at just 35 years of age. His next novel, The Unconsoled (1995)—a radical stylistic departure from his early, conventional works that received passionately mixed reviews—focuses on lack of communication and absence of emotion as a concert pianist arrives in a European city to give a performance.
➡️ Plot of the Novel:
An Artist of the Floating World (1986), a novel by Nobel-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; it also took home the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. Retired artist Masuji Ono’s career has delivered him prestige, but he questions his status. Due to his political position—working as a nationalist creator of propaganda for the government during World War II—Ono doubts his status after his daughter’s marriage negotiations suffer. Identity is a major theme, and Ono spends much of the novel trying to figure out his own identity and his place in his family and in the post-war world. He visits with other artists, even Kuroda, whom he feels he wronged. Ono had had doubts about Kuroda’s loyalty, which he shared with the authorities; as a result, Kuroda had been arrested. Even though Ono decides that his actions were wrong, his family doesn’t seem to think so—or they don’t care, as they enjoy the comforts his prestige provides.
Ono wonders if he really deserves his house. It once belonged to a famous artist, and he won it at auction. It wasn’t an auction for money, but rather for prestige. Now retired, Ono struggles with family matters. His youngest daughter, Noriko, was engaged to marry but the other family broke the contract. Ono presumes this is because the other family is in a different class, but his daughters are concerned the issue stems from Ono’s background.
This uncertainty launches the inspection into Ono’s past actions. He was an artist of what was called “the floating world.” Other denizens of this world included geishas, alcohol, entertainment, and romance. More and more in the 1930s, Japan tended toward nationalism; that’s when Ono shifted from creating art to creating propaganda. Ono supported nationalism, as well as the expansion of a Japanese empire. In the years following World War II, nationalistic views such as those Ono exhibits are no longer popular. His own son-in-law is angry with Ono’s generation for sending young soldiers to die in the war while staying safe at home. Some military leaders have committed suicide, or seppuku, to atone for this as well as for their own actions in the war.
Ono examines his own actions through flashbacks and visits with old friends, artists, and comrades. Ultimately, he realizes that he played a part in what became a national disaster. One night, when his family is dining with the family of a suitor for Noriko’s hand in marriage, Ono admits that his art, his propaganda, may have negatively influenced the Japanese during the war. Though he has come to terms with his own past and admitted the impact his actions had on his family, Ono isn’t yet finished trying to clear his conscience. He embarks next on a mission to visit his former student, Kuroda, who was imprisoned during the war. Kuroda refuses to absolve Ono despite the latter’s apologies and admission that his actions led to the former’s arrest. Ono, desperate to have someone not only agree with him that his actions caused harm but also forgive him years later, turns to his daughter. However, she refuses to see him as anything other than the prestigious artist. Finally, he connects with a former colleague, Matsuda.
Matsuda was responsible for bringing Ono into the nationalist party. Together, they come to terms with how they impacted Japan and the Japanese during the war. They also conclude in retrospect that while their actions were obviously negative, at the time, they thought they were doing the right thing. In one another’s empathy, they find redemption, which is another theme of the novel. The redeeming quality of their actions is that they tried something daring instead of taking the safe route. As artists, they ultimately decide that this is worth some good will.
➡️ Themes of the novel: An artist of the Floating world.
1 . Role of the art and the artist :
An Artist of the Floating World presents two visions of what an artist should attempt in his or her work, and of what kinds of goals are achievable through art. For the characters who are artists or who are passionate about art, these different visions are so essential that they can lead to personal conflict. One vision of art's purpose is embodied by Ono's teacher Moriyama. Moriyama believes that art should be used to create and mimic beauty, especially fleeting, temporary beauty. Moriyama's art values aesthetics above all, and his students are expected to master difficult techniques in order to capture visual beauty. Matsuda subscribes to the opposite vision. He believes that art should engage with the outside world and be explicitly political. According to Matsuda, artists should not hide away from the outside world, but should try to change it. These two artistic visions are presented as the most important ones, and neither Ono nor Ishiguro ever quite chooses one or dismisses another. However, several other ideas about art appear in the book and then fade away as Ono rejects them. One such idea is his father's. Ono's father believes that art is unnecessary and that all artists are degenerates. The other is the mindless assembly-line artistry of Master Takeda's studio, where both ideas and technique are ignored in favor of pure productivity. Ishigure never seriously entertains Takeda's vision of art. Rather, he focuses on Moriyama's and Matsuda's principles, and on the damage that results when one of these visions becomes so hegemonic that artists who diverge are punished.
2 . Intergenerational conflict:
Ishiguro introduces us to four generations of Ono's family, and between each generation, complicated differences and conflicts arise. While such conflicts may be universal—suggested by the fact that they crop up in both calm and fraught historical moments—they are exacerbated here by the unusually sudden changes happening in mid-twentieth-century Japan. Ono's own father cares deeply about traditional, material definitions of success, and he expects Ono to take over the family business. He is so determined for this to happen that he cruelly tries to destroy his son's paintings and plans to be an artist. Ono has political and cultural differences with his own children, and their, spouses, as well. He feels defensive of Japan's earlier, nationalistic culture, and resents his children for embracing the American powers in Japan. While Ono never explicitly contemplates suicide, he dwells on stories of other men his age taking their own lives, which reveals that the older, less-powerful generation feels like a burden to the younger generation. In a more complex and paradoxical way, Ono both fears that he is a burden and wishes to be seen as one, since that would allow him to feel relevant and important in a changing world. Towards the end of the novel, the aging Ono seems to realize that the younger generations are not as different as he once thought. Previously upset by his grandson's enthusiasm for American entertainment, he starts to recognize his grandson's resemblance to other family members, and to perceive him as part of a broader family history. In the novel's final scene, Ono realizes that the young people in town are similar to the friends he himself knew as a young man.
3. Imperialism and sovereignty:
Over the course of Ono's life, Japan goes through a great deal of political turmoil. As a young man, Ono embraces Japanese military power and comes to believe that his country should be a worldwide imperial power. It is somewhat unclear what motivates these political views. He is upset by the injustice and poverty he sees in his city, and decides that Japan can improve the lot of its citizens through nationalistic militarization, though he never explains the relationship between these things. It seems that he feels a need for action, and that military power is the most obvious route, if not the most helpful. Since Japan loses the war, it actually ends up on the receiving end of American imperialism. Ono finds this humiliating, but it also drives a wedge between the older and younger generations, since the older ones are generally unhappy about this geopolitical situation and the younger ones are used to it or even enthusiastic about it. Ishiguro focuses less on the political results of imperialism and more on the personal factors that lead to it. In this book, a desire for purpose and meaning, without a proper outlet, lead to war and violence, in a never ending cycle.
4. Aging:
At the end of this novel, we learn that much of the story Ono has told us isn't quite true. While Ono did once subscribe to nationalistic political views, in his old age he has begun to pretend that he was far more influential than he ever was in reality. Therefore, while the generation gap between his own politics and his childrens' remains a reality, the reader has to acknowledge the possibility that Ono is simply afraid of aging and death. He is, as a result, clinging to the idea that he made a difference during his life, even if that difference was a negative one. Ishiguro implies that one of the reasons for Ono's seemingly irrational behavior is the loss he has suffered. His son is dead, meaning that the symbolic future version of himself has been extinguished—he has nobody to carry on his legacy. Indeed, even his country is now neutered and powerless in the face of post-war power shifts. Eventually, Ono seems to recognize that his daughters and grandchildren are worthy and meaningful heirs to his legacy. Still, the war robs him of a healthy aging process, at least for a long time, and as a result, he clings to an imagined past instead of a now-lost future.
4. Grief:
There are essentially three types of grief in this novel, all of which Ono suffers at one point or another. One type comes from the unexpected or premature loss of a loved one. The loss of his wife and son during the war destabilize Ono, causing his narration to become unreliable. He is so unable to cope with the senseless realities of their deaths that he exaggerates, avoids and fabricates in order to either justify these deaths or minimize the damage they have done to him. A second kind of grief comes from the timely loss of a loved one. Matsuda's death causes Ono to feel pensive, but he is able to deal with the loss in a healthy way, since he knows that Matsuda lived a long and satisfied life. In fact, Matsuda's natural death allows him to contextualize the unjust deaths of Kenji and Michiko. The final, and most complicated, form of loss comes not from death but from betrayal or conflict. Ono parts with Moriyama, and even more painfully, with his favorite student Kuroda, on bad terms. The grief caused by these events is particularly difficult because the loss is a continuing event. Since Kuroda remains alive, Ono continues to hope that he might repair their relationship and regain Kuroda's friendship. When he is rebuffed, he is forced to grieve all over again for this loss and to revisit the choices that led to it. The only way that he is able to cope with this kind of grief is to, eventually, acknowledge Kuroda's right to distance himself and accept it begrudgingly.
Conclusion:
Thus to conclude we can say that, An artist of the Floating world is a novel which covers themes like Role of art and artists, imperialism and intergenerational conflict etc.
Word count: 2444
Reference:
Ishiguro, Kazuo. “An Artist of the Floating World Themes.” GradeSaver, https://www.gradesaver.com/an-artist-of-the-floating-world/study-guide/themes.
“Kazuo Ishiguro.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kazuo-Ishiguro.
No comments:
Post a Comment