Abstract:

A Pale View of Hills is a famous novel written by contemporary Japanese-born British novelist Ishiguro Kazuo. The novel is written in a narrative of tension. It tells the stories of several Japanese persons after the Second World War, showing everyone's self-ethics identity cognition and choice in different ethical relations. With the Ethical Literary Criticism, the thesis analyzes the identity of the characters in the novel and their ethical choices in the ethical situation at that time. Yuezi, the protagonist, could not bear the enormous impact of the atomic bomb explosion. She chose the former between her life self-awareness and her mother's ethical identity, and then she felt guilty about her daughter's suicide. The Japanese men,Erlang and Songtian made different choices between family ethical identity and social ethical identity. The different choices show Ishiguro Kazuo's ethical stance and human concern in his novel.

Key words: A Pale View of Hills, Ishiguro Kazuo, ethical status, ethical choice, human concern