| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 外國語文學系所 === 97 === Ishiguro prefers writing international or universal themes. In When We Were Orphans, he deals with the theme of “the orphanage complex.” This study is a psychoanalytical approach to the novel. It draws on the psychoanalytical theories of Kristeva and Lacan, based mainly on the idea of “chora” and the distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic. The novel is seen as a hybrid of several genres (a detective novel, a historical novel, a love romance, a realistic novel, etc.), but mainly as a psycho-realistic novel with its protagonist, a detective, telling his own detective’s story, which is interpretable in terms of trauma and nostalgia. In the discussion, Ishiguro’s writing techniques used in the novel are examined. They include the use of a first-person unreliable narrator, the unified theme of orphanage, the meaningful images and symbols (home, the magnifying glass, the twine, and the dangling cobweb), and the choice of meaningful names for the hero and heroine. The thesis concludes that the novel has a universal theme; it is a tale of two cities; it is a remembrance of things past; it is everyman’s wish to return to the chora and a myth of paradise lost and regained.
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