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License Agreement on scientific materials use.
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Poetics of non-action: family images and visual stasis in Kazuo Ishiguro’s prose
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Tatiana Sergeevna Orlova
St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design
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Submitted:
November 28, 2025
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Abstract.
The paper examines the artistic embodiment of family images in Kazuo Ishiguro’s prose within the context of his cinematic poetics. The research aims to explore the technique of non-action as a form of visualizing emotional distance and silent interaction between characters. The objective of the research is to reveal how the poetics of non-action determines the construction of family images and contributes to the formation of a unique model of visual psychologism in Kazuo Ishiguro’s prose. The paper analyzes the short story “A Family Supper” and the novels “Never Let Me Go” and “Klara and the Sun” – works in which family relationships are constructed through pauses, chiaroscuro, retrospective montage, and recurring motifs of silence. Family in Ishiguro’s artistic world primarily exists as a loss or a deficit compensated by memory and friendship, while the technique of non-action becomes the primary mechanism for expressing emotional isolation. The scientific originality of the research lies in identifying the role of non-action as a structural principle of cinematic narration that determines the formation of family images in Ishiguro’s prose. For the first time, it is demonstrated that visual stasis and silence function as internal montage, transforming the absence of action into a source of psychological tension and semantic movement. The results refine the understanding of the interaction between literary and cinematic techniques in English-language prose of the late 20th – early 21st century and demonstrate that Ishiguro’s family theme is realized through the form of “non-action”: pauses, shadows, silence, and unspoken elements.
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Key words and phrases:
Кадзуо Исигуро
поэтика не-действия
визуальный психологизм
кинематографическая поэтика
тема семьи
Kazuo Ishiguro
poetics of non-action
visual psychologism
cinematic poetics
family theme
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