이시구로의 "희미한 언덕의 풍경": 여성과 어머니 사이에서

Abstract

Ishiguro’s first full-length novel A Pale View of Hills delivers the narrative of a woman who recently passed through her daughter’s suicide in England. The narrator, Etsuko, reminisces about her past experience in Nagasaki, Japan, of which she had a variety of memories which have hardly been eliminated from her mind: memory of a bomb and the deaths of her parents and lover, divorce from husband, Jiro, etc. These events have been buried in some blind spot of her memory until she faces her daughter’s death. In order to incorporate the shocking event into her horizon of understanding, she endeavors to detect the cause of the death and to justify her own decision of emigrating to England. In the process of recasting her past, she acts as a detective who explores her past and also as a criminal who blurs some events to conceal her negligence in taking care of her daughter’s trauma. Through Etsuko’s narrative the readers can understand the background against which Etsuko/Sachiko’s struggle to pursue their own self-accomplishments and independence were made. Their hardship in confronting the traditional patriarchal structure, the drive toward the reconstruction of society without the continuous proper work of mourning, and responsibility to take care of their daughters is persuasively addressed. However, Etusko’s possible negligence in giving scrupulous care to Keiko is not obviously rendered, but scattered and concealed in the story about Mariko.