The Weight of History: Trauma, Memory and Moral Responsibility in the Fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan

This thesis aims to explore topics of trauma, memory and moral responsibility in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1989) and Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001). This study begins by tracing the development of trauma theory, from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model to Cathy Caruth’s insights into the representability of trauma. It then considers the role of literature as an effective medium for exploring and reimagining traumatic experience, with a particular focus on the historical novel as a genre that intertwines personal memory and collective history. Following this theoretical framework, this study delves into the analysis of the two novels. In his The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro introduces the figure of Stevens, an English butler who has devoted his entire life to the moral codes of duty and dignity. Yet, this remarkable professionalism comes at a cost: Stevens feels compelled to suppress his emotions and turn a blind eye to his employer’s ethically compromised political activities. On the other hand, McEwan’s Atonement tells the story of Briony Tallis, who dedicates her whole life to composing her biographical account as an act of reparation for a mistake she made as a child. However, while (re)writing her past, she questions whether a novelist can truly achieve atonement. This thesis maintains that these two novels, by portraying characters torn between their personal aspirations and the ethical imperative of confronting uncomfortable truths, successfully interweave individual and collective trauma. Furthermore, it suggests that the past can never be fully articulated or atoned for, but only endlessly reinterpreted through the distorted lens of memory and fiction.