The purpose of this research is to examine An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. The plan of the research will be to set forth specific features of the portrayal of the protagonist in the novel, and then to connect that characterization with the unfolding of Japanese postwar history.
To discuss An Artist of the Floating World with appropriate understanding, it is necessary to understand that the main character, Ono Masuji, is an unreliable narrator. That is, Ishiguro presents an ironic portrait of a character who thinks he is telling one story but is in fact telling quite another. Ono has a perception of himself and a memory of Japan before, during, and after World War II that is at variance with reality. His assessment and experience of his reputation and stature as an artist, as well as his idea of Japan's role in modern history, is far different from the truth, and this self-deception is the core of the narrative. Through the eyes of Ono, whose personal experience has included his position as something of a cultural icon, one can discern an artifact of cultural self-deception and self-justification masquerading as cultural virtue.
How this comes about in .An Artist of the Floating World. may be seen in the back-story of Ono's career. The war affected Ono's artistic career favorably. His account of his success as an artist in the years before and during the war is one that describes an artist in the mode of heroic materialism. That mode is perfectly in keeping with advocacy of the Japanese imperialism that characterized the first years of the 20th century, including the imperialism of World War II itself. Indeed, Ono's description of his work in the years just before the war indicates that he, like his mentor Matsuda, was very much an artistic stooge of that imperialist society. Ono recalls Matsuda's assertion of the responsibility of the imperialist Japanese artist to "produce work of genuine value for these dif...