Download or read book Samurai Ethics in the Works of Kazuo Ishiguro written by Lynn Bay and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 3,0, University of Würzburg (englische Literaturwissenschaft), language: English, abstract: Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro is not very fond of critics concentrating on Japanese elements in his works , however, his first short stories and the following two novels take place – even if, as it is the case with A Pale View of Hills, only partly– in Japan, making it hard not to concentrate on the writer ́s apparent preoccupation with his Japanese heritage. His third novel, featuring an English setting and characters – an old mansion, a butler, and his employer, may have been viewed as an attempt to break away from this line of interpretation on the one hand, on the other, however, it was the one work which first merited a mention of the similarities between the butler ́s philosophy of life and the samurai code of honour. To the author, though, his three novels, namely A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, and The Remains of the Day, are linked primarily by their characters, who all seem to be stuck in similar situations, having to face their past – in all three cases the past ultimately revolves around their choices before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War – and consequently struggle with their long-repressed feelings of regret and even shame... Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Samurai Ethics in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro 2.1. Samurai Ethics – An Overview 2.2. The Position of Woman – Ishiguro’s Female Characters 2.3. Suicide 2.4. The Duty of Loyalty 2.4.1. Filial Piety 2.4.2. Teacher-Student relationship 2.4.3. Loyalty to the Master 2.4.4. Serving a Higher Purpose 2.5. Self-Control 2.6. Ishiguro’s Imaginary Homeland(s) 3. Conclusion 4. Bibliography

Download or read book The Taming of the Samurai written by Eiko Ikegami and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-25 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Japan offers us a view of a highly developed society with its own internal logic. Eiko Ikegami makes this logic accessible to us through a sweeping investigation into the roots of Japanese organizational structures. She accomplishes this by focusing on the diverse roles that the samurai have played in Japanese history. From their rise in ancient Japan, through their dominance as warrior lords in the medieval period, and their subsequent transformation to quasi-bureaucrats at the beginning of the Tokugawa era, the samurai held center stage in Japan until their abolishment after the opening up of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. This book demonstrates how Japan’s so-called harmonious collective culture is paradoxically connected with a history of conflict. Ikegami contends that contemporary Japanese culture is based upon two remarkably complementary ingredients, honorable competition and honorable collaboration. The historical roots of this situation can be found in the process of state formation, along very different lines from that seen in Europe at around the same time. The solution that emerged out of the turbulent beginnings of the Tokugawa state was a transformation of the samurai into a hereditary class of vassal-bureaucrats, a solution that would have many unexpected ramifications for subsequent centuries. Ikegami’s approach, while sociological, draws on anthropological and historical methods to provide an answer to the question of how the Japanese managed to achieve modernity without traveling the route taken by Western countries. The result is a work of enormous depth and sensitivity that will facilitate a better understanding of, and appreciation for, Japanese society.

Download or read book Kazuo Ishiguro written by Barry Lewis and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Japanese is Ishiguro? What role does memory and unreliability play in his narratives? Why was The Unconsoled (1995) perceived to be such a radical break from the earlier novels?. The first complete study to consider all of Ishiguro's work from A pale view of the hills (1982) to When we were Orphans (2000), including his short stories and television plays. Explores the centrality of dignity and displacement in Ishiguro's vision, and teases out the connotations of home and homelessness in his fictions. Invaluable for students at all levels, especially as The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro is a set text at GCSE and A Level.

Download or read book Yukio Mishima on Hagakure written by Yukio Mishima and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Samurai Ethic and Modern Japan written by Yukio Mishima and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Way of the Samurai written by Yukio Mishima and published by Perigee Books. This book was released on 1983 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kazuo Ishiguro written by Sean Matthews and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-01-28 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the finest and most accomplished contemporary writers of his generation. The short story author, television writer and novelist, included twice in Granta's list of Best Young British Writers, has over the past twenty-five years produced a body of work which is just as critically-acclaimed as it is popular with the general public. Like the writings of Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro's work is concerned with creating discursive platforms for issues of class, ethics, ethnicity, nationhood, place, gender and the uses and problems surrounding artistic representation. As a Japanese immigrant who came to Great Britain in 1960, Ishiguro has used his unique position and fine intellectual abilities to contemplate what it means to be British in the contemporary era. This guide traces the main themes throughout Ishiguro's writing whilst it also pays attention to his short stories and writing for television. It includes a new interview with the author, a preface by Haruki Murakami and discussion of James Ivory's adaptation of The Remains of the Day.

Download or read book Pictures from the Water Trade written by John David Morley and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author describes his experiences as a student in Japan and offers an inside look at the nightclubs and geisha bars of Tokyo

Download or read book The Mercantile Ethical Tradition in Edo Period Japan written by Ichiro Horide and published by Springer. This book was released on 2020-08-14 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates that during Japan’s early modern Edo period (1603–1868) an ethical code existed among the merchant class comparable to that of the well-known Bushido. There is compelling evidence that contemporary merchants, who were widely and openly despised as immoral by the samurai, in fact acted in highly ethical ways in accordance with a well-articulated moral code. Japanese society was strictly stratified into four distinct and formally recognized classes: warrior, farmer, craftsman and merchant. From the warriors’ perspective, the merchants, at the base of the social order, had no virtue, and existed only to skim profits as middlemen between producers and consumers. But were these accusations correct? Were the merchants really unethical beings who engaged in unfair business practices? There is ample evidence that negates the ubiquitous slanders of the warrior class and suggests that merchants – no less than the warriors – possessed and acted in accordance with a well-developed ethical code, a spirit that may be called shonindo or “The Way of the Merchant.” This book examines whether a comparison of shonindo, depicting the ethical point of view of the merchant class, and Bushido, embodying that of the warrior class, reveals that shonindo may have in fact surpassed Bushido in some aspects. Comparing contemporarily published historical documents concerning both shonindo and Bushido, as well as Inazo Nitobe’s classic work Bushido: The Soul of Japan, published in 1900, the author examines how Bushido surpassed shonindo in that warriors were willing to die for their strict ethical code. Shonindo, however, may have surpassed Bushido in that merchants were liberal, willing to expand and extend application of their ethical beliefs into all aspects of everyday life for the overall benefit of society. This ethical code is compared with that of the conservative Bushido, which demonstrably proved not up to the task for the modernization and improved well-being of Japan. Ichiro Horide is professor emeritus of Reitaku University. Edward Yagi (Reitaku University) and Stanley J. Ziobro II (Trident Technical College) collaborated in the translation of the original Japanese manuscript into English.

Download or read book The Japanese Ethos written by Masahiro Yasuoka and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Japanese Ethos: A Study of National Character is a seminal work of Yasuoka Masahiro (1898-1983). Published in 1924 despite Yasuoka's dissatisfaction with its shortcomings, the book was kept out of print by Yasuoka until popularity prompted reissuance in 1934 and 1937. In 1924, some 50 years after opening to the world in the Meiji Restoration, Japan was drowning in a flood of Western ideas, and all of Asia was in turmoil. The British-Afghan War had erupted just 5 years before, followed by Gandhi's nationwide "non-cooperation" campaign in India one year later. Yasuoka, still in his 20s, and deeply troubled by Western decadence infecting Japan in this time of crisis, urged development of an independent national character. "Now, before our eyes in Japan, citizens, one and all, are unequivocally conscious of being confronted with a terrible crisis. The time is now for Japan, as a nation, to realize a remarkable development of character." The Japanese Ethos was written to guide Japan to a promising future through the wisdom of ancient teachings. In it, Yasuoka describes a history and tradition nurtured for more than 2000 years. The moral examples depicted are primarily samurai and he discusses in detail the character traits a samurai must cultivate. In later chapters he gives examples of men of great character. Two chapters address kendo (sword fighting), whose spirit "became the foundation of all the arts and letters, and of Eastern thought." The samurai spirit was the leading force for the Meiji Restoration and is the essence of this book. For Japan, which lost much of its culture after World War II, The Japanese Ethos has awakened a nation from slumber. Though written nearly a century ago, it is surprisingly current and makes us ponder what it truly means to be Japanese.

Download or read book The Samurai written by Shūsaku Endō and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Endo to my mind is one of the finest living novelists." --Graham Greene" ""In 1613, four low-ranking Japanese Samurai, accompanied by a Spanish priest, set sail for Mexico on an unprecedented mission: to bargain for a Catholic crusade through Japan in exchange for trading rights with the West. Among the first Japanese ever to set foot in Europe, they travel to Rome and gain an audience with the Pope. All are baptized, hoping to curry favor with their European hosts. But upon returning to Japan, they discover that the Shoguns no longer wish to forge links with the West, nor will they tolerate the Christian religion. The seven-year mission has been in vain. Disgraced and tormented, the Samurai begin to identify deeply with the crucified Christ they formerly reviled. Based on historical fact, this is a powerful examination of the impact of external events on our deepest beliefs.

Download or read book The Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro written by Matthew Beedham and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most popular contemporary authors, Kazuo Ishiguro has so far produced six highly regarded novels which have won him international acclaim and honours, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Award and an OBE for Services to Literature. This Reader's Guide: - Evaluates the various responses to Ishiguro's work, beginning with initial reactions, moving on to key scholarly criticism, and taking note along the way of what Ishiguro has offered - Discusses each of Ishiguro's novels, from A Pale View of the Hills (1982) to Never Let Me Go (2005) - Features three in-depth chapters on Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day (1993) - Analyses reviews, interviews and scholarly essays and articles in order to situate the novels in the context of Ishiguro's ouevre - Explores themes and issues which are central to the author's fiction, such as narration, ethics and memory. Lucid and insightful, this is an indispensable introductory guide for anyone studying – or simply interested in - the work of this major novelist.

Download or read book The Soul of Japan written by Nitobe Inazo and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-01-12 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nitobe was a prolific writer. He published many scholarly books as well as books for general readers (see below). He also contributed hundreds of articles to popular magazines and newspapers. Nitobe, however, is perhaps most famous in the west for his work Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1900), which was one of the first major works on samurai ethics and Japanese culture written originally in English for Western readers (The book was subsequently translated into Japanese and many other languages). Although sometimes criticized as portraying the samurai in terms so Western as to take away some of their actual meaning, this book nonetheless was a pioneering work of its kind.

Download or read book Kazuo Ishiguro and the Ethics of Reading World Literature written by Rebecca Karni and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book From Samurai to Shishi written by Barry Dale Steben and published by National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada. This book was released on 1994 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Two World Literature written by Rebecca Suter and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-05-31 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, Rebecca Suter aims to complicate our understanding of world literature by examining the creative and critical deployment of cultural stereotypes in the early novels of Kazuo Ishiguro. “World literature” has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years: Aamir Mufti called it the result of “one-world thinking,” the legacy of an imperial system of cultural mapping from a unified perspective. Suter views Ishiguro’s fiction as an important alternative to this paradigm. Born in Japan, raised in the United Kingdom, and translated into a broad range of languages, Ishiguro has throughout his career consciously used his multiple cultural positioning to produce texts that look at broad human concerns in a significantly different way. Through a close reading of his early narrative strategies, Suter explains how Ishiguro has been able to create a “two-world literature” that addresses universal human concerns and avoids the pitfalls of the single, Western-centric perspective of “one-world vision.” Setting his first two novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and An Artist of the Floating World (1986), in a Japan explicitly used as a metaphor enabled Ishiguro to parody and subvert Western stereotypes about Japan, and by extension challenge the universality of Western values. This subversion was amplified in his third novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), which is perfectly legible through both English and Japanese cultural paradigms. Building on this subversion of stereotypes, Ishiguro’s early work investigates the complex relationship between social conditioning and agency, showing how characters’ behavior is related to their cultural heritage but cannot be reduced to it. This approach lies at the core of the author’s compelling portrayal of human experience in more recent works, such as Never Let Me Go (2005) and The Buried Giant (2015), which earned Ishiguro a global audience and a Nobel Prize. Deprived of the easy explanations of one-world thinking, readers of Ishiguro’s two-world literature are forced to appreciate the complexity of the interrelation of individual and collective identity, personal and historical memory, and influence and agency to gain a more nuanced, “two-world appreciation” of human experience.

Download or read book Kazuo Ishiguro written by Wai-chew Sim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-10-16 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kazuo Ishiguro's writing has rapidly gained global recognition since his first publication in 1981. This guidebook offers a biographical survey of Ishiguro’s literary career, an introduction to his novels, plays and short stories, as well as an accessible overview of the contexts and many interpretations of his work. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume cross-references thoroughly between sections and presents useful suggestions for further reading.