The Descent of the Japanese Patriarch:

from History to Literary Representations

Abstract

Following the Second World War, Japan plunged into a deep identity crisis. This was due partly to the shock of being defeated in the war, but mostly to the inability to cope with the downfall of the Emperor, the Father of the nation, the direct descendant of the Sun goddess, who had failed to protect them. Kazuo Ishiguro’s first two novels, which are set in post-war Japan, bring forth this issue through the description of a belittled father figure, undergoing an identity crisis, trying to re-establish his authority, but confessing his faults and accepting his condition. The aim of this paper is to identify the similarities between the fall of the father figure and that of the leader of the Japanese nation in both Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, as well as the differences between the consequences this has had in life and in fiction.