ABSTRACT

Collective memory, especially the memory of war, is of critical importance to the cohesion of an ethnic group. This paper takes an interest in the collective memory of ethnic war in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. It firstly examines the influence of the loss and recall of collective war memory, which impacts the (re)shaping of group identity. It then introduces the idea of “symbolic politics”, and illustrates that the stories in the novel and their real-world parallels suggest that the manipulative elites could consolidate particular collective war memories for their own interests or the needs of the present. Collective war memory could be constructed to build ethnic myths which could evoke emotions like hatred and fear. However, neither the deliberate suppressing/forgetting of the traumatic memory of war, nor the sudden remembering/emphasising of fear and crisis are the way to coexist in harmony with others. It concludes that some key factors of forgiveness emphasised in the novel might help with peacebuilding in the postwar world and finally complete the process of reconciliation.

摘要

集体记忆，特别是战争记忆，对于一个民族的凝聚力至关重要。本文对石黑一雄（Kazuo Ishiguro）的《埋葬的巨人》中的种族战争的集体记忆感兴趣。首先，它考察了集体战争记忆丧失和回忆的影响，这些影响影响了群体身份的（重新）塑造。然后，它介绍了“象征性政治”的概念，并说明小说中的故事及其与现实世界的相似之处表明，操纵精英可以根据自己的利益或当前的需要来巩固特定的集体战争记忆。可以建立集体战争记忆来建立种族神话，这些神话可以唤起仇恨和恐惧之类的情绪。然而，既不是故意地压制/遗忘战争的创伤性记忆，也不是突然想起/强调恐惧和危机是与他人和谐共处的方式。