Unreliable Narrator in Kazuo Ishiguro's "An Artist of Floating World"
An Artist of the Floating World: Masuji Ono as an Unreliable Narrator Introduction: Kazuo Ishiguro’s “An Artist of the Floating World”(1986) is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter, who looks back on his life and how he has lived it. He notices how his reputation as a painter has faltered since Japan lost the war and the attitude of people has changed towards him and his paintings. The novel ends with the narrator expressing goodwill for the young white-collar workers on the streets at lunchbreak. The novel also deals with the role of people in a rapidly changing political environment and with the assumption and denial of guilt. The author's use of an unreliable narrator is one of the most fascinating literary devices used in storytelling. While there have been unreliable narrators dating back to the work of the Ancient Greek playwright, Aristophanes, the term was coined ...