摘要：To the western eye the house symbolises a variety of things which have been passed on through different forms of dissemination. In this way it would be no surprise and no problem to anyone to identify the image of the house in an advertisement for life insurance as a symbol for stability, longevity, or safety. Though generally regarded as a positive symbol by the general public, the house has been endowed by literature with other less optimistic attributes. In the literary field the imagery of the house starts from the safe haven which denotes the classical representation but takes on new meaning according to genre, literary movement or even the ethnic background of the readers. In a horror, or a thriller narrative for example, the house may assume the significance of the opposite that has been so far mentioned – i.e. a confinement method, or a source of entrapment. The eerie image of the house in the opening of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher which, upon mere sight, offers "a sense of insufferable gloom" is a prolepsis (Genette 1980) meant to warn the reader of the atrocities which are about to unfold. Dickens' Satis House from Great Expectations stands for the decadence and decay of the various wealthy upper classes, while F.S. Fitzgerald's portrayal of the house in The Great Gatsby reminds of social status, power and influence. When ethnicity is added to the already overwhelming amount of associations the image of the house may have, completely new overtones appear. This is precisely the case of Kazuo Ishiguro's prose. British writer of Japanese descent, he has been highly acclaimed by both critics and the general public as one of the prominent literary figures of present times. Despite often denying any connection to the Japanese cultural milieu, his novels hint at the opposite. In particular his first two novels which are set in post Second World War Japan
关键词：alterity; house symbolism; concept of Uchi; within-without; ; Japanese culture
