2。2 Previous Research Abroad

Compared with studies at home, scholars abroad start their analysis very early and have made some achievements。 Those studies mainly focus on the relationship between Ishiguro’s unique cultural background and the themes of his novels, and of course, the narrative skills he uses。 Famous books like Brain’s (1998) Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro, analyzes his works carefully from the angles of memory, dignity and identity and believes that the main character uses retrospective and unreliable narration to show the central ideas of the writer。 

Many British and American scholars show great interests in Ishiguro’s works。 Lang (2000), Wall (1994) and Guth (1999), these scholars study mainly on unreliable narration of Stevens。 They also analyze how Ishiguro shapes the image of Stevens and what is the meaning of this image through unreliable narrative strategy。 What’s more, they point out that this novel indicates the backwardness of Britain and the growth of newly post-colonized nations。文献综述

2。3 Summary

There have been a lot of researches on the main character Stevens。 Most researches focus on the unreliable narration of him while others concentrate on narrative strategies of the whole text。

As we see, Ishiguro also uses this technique to show us a vivid image of Stevens by writing much about the social and political background。 Information here is conveyed not by the author himself, but through the main narrator, Stevens and other secondary narrators。 It also contains some of Stevens’ personal affections。 Various narrative strategies are thus used by the main narrator Stevens and other secondary narrators。 Analysis on the narration of historical and political information is nearly blank。 There is still a lot of research space in this area。