Individual and Collective Memory in Ishiguro’s the Buried Giant

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro’s seventh novel The Buried Giant (2015) investigates the concept of memory in a fantastical tale which is set in the early medieval history of the post-Roman period. In a pattern of quest, the main characters embark on a journey to accomplish their mission. As for Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple, it is to find their son and recall their lost memories. For Wistan, a Saxon warrior, it is to terminate the she-dragon named Querig whose magical breath causes a mist of forgetfulness across the land. In a narration where individual and collective memory prove to be interconnected, the writer contemplates on loss, regret, forgetting and remembering. While the mutual dependency of the individual and collective memories are presented throughout the text, the nature of traumatic experiences and mourning process is put under the limelight. The end of the novel puts an emphasis on the question of whether remembering is a blessing or a curse for both the individual and the community or nation. In this article, therefore, brief biographical information about Kazuo Ishiguro will be first given and afterwards the interconnected of individual and collective memory will be explored with the help of scholars such as Maurice Halbwachs, Cathy Caruth and Anne Whitehead. The opportunities offered by the individual and collective recollection, as well as the dilemmas and constraits it causes will be exemplified through the main characters in the novel.