A New Historicist Approach to Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans

Abstract

New Historicism, flourishing in the 1980s as a “new” contemporary literary approach, proposes new viewpoints to the understanding of history and challenges the conventional understanding of history by pointing out the private histories. New Historicism deals with the representations of history rather than the history itself since it believes that there is not one history but multiple histories. The purpose of this article is to analyze the representation of history in Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans from the New Historicist viewpoint by focusing on the concepts of time, memory and narrative technique, hence to reveal how history is narrated in subjective multiple ways and how personal histories and public histories are intermingled.

Keywords

• New Historicism,representation of history,historicity of texts,textuality of history,memory

Kazuo Ishiguro’nun Çocukluğumu Ararken adlı Romanına Yeni Tarihselci Bir Yaklaşım

Abstract

1980’li yılların ortasında “yeni” bir edebi teori/yaklaşım olarak ortaya çıkan Yeni Tarihselcilik kuramı tarih anlayışına yeni bakış açıları sunmaktadır ve öznel tarih anlayışlarına vurgu yaparak geleneksel tarih anlayışına meydan okumaktadır. Yeni Tarihselcilik akımı tek bir tarih olmadığına ve çoklu tarih anlayışına inandığı için tarihin kendisiyle değil tarih(ler)in nasıl temsil edildiği ile ilgilenmektedir. Bu makalenin amacı Kazuo Ishiguro’nun Çocukluğumu Ararken adlı romanına Yeni Tarihselcilik edebi teorisi/yaklaşımı çerçevesinde zaman, bellek ve anlatım tekniği kavramlarına değinerek tarih temsilini incelemek ve böylece tarihin çeşitli öznel temsilleri ile kişisel ve genel tarihin nasıl iç içe geçtiğini ortaya çıkartmaktır.

Keywords

• Yeni Tarihselcilik,tarih temsili,metnin tarihselleşmesi,tarihin metinselleşmesi,bellek,Kazuo Ishiguro

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