Thesis (M.A.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English

This thesis investigates the role of place in the portrayal of the experience of loss, displacement and wasted lives in three selected novels by the British Japanese-born author Kazuo Ishiguro. The selected texts are A Pale View of Hills (1982), The Remains of the Day (1989), and When We Were Orphans (2000). The study examines the function of place in the narratives in relation to the experience of loss through three theoretical approaches including Gaston Bachelard's topoanalysis as a psychological category of inner space through the analysis of the house as an intimate place that affects an individual's memory. The study also examines the protagonists' traumatic recollections of places through Cathy Caruth's theory of trauma, proving how historical disasters disturb individual and collective awareness alike. Finally, the experience of displacement is analyzed in light of John Agnew's threefold framework which defines place as a ''meaningful location''. For Agnew, in order for a place to be meaningful to its inhabitants, it has to obtain "location", "locale" and "sense of place". The study indicates how the change of such properties of place leads to the characters' feelings of loss and displacement

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