The Use of Generational Differences in Order to Establish the Importance of the Floating World Mario Lopez 12th Grade

Kazuo Ishiguro’s An artist of the Floating World is a novel ripe with scenes of introspection, indeed the past is one of the principal devices in order to further many of the work’s central themes. Regardless of the oftentimes stringent, even revered, remembrance of times of youthful flights of fancy there is nonetheless a looming presence of the present, and perhaps crucially one of the future. Truly a contrast is established between Ono’s floating world and that of the next generation. Although Ono sees the errors of his country and his own actions and expresses them in his frequent recollections he cannot help but hope that life will be better for his and his country’s progenies. We can see that through the contrast of the past and the present established by the use of flashbacks Ishiguro establishes the significance of the floating world and the reasons why, although it may not be inherently negative, it must be pushed aside for the future.

One of the more plentiful motifs interspaced throughout the novel is that of the biased flashback, characterized profusely by the unreliable narrator that is Ono. This emphasizes the duality that exists in the novel which serves its purpose stylistically as well as analytically. The...