42 pages • 1 hour read
Kazuo IshiguroThe Buried Giant
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part Two, Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Axl struggles to sleep in an upper-floor roomgiven to him by the monks. Outside, in the evening, he can hear the sound of Wistan and Edwin chopping wood. Axl begins to recall the events of earlier in the day, when the monk, Father Brian, brought him and Beatrice some food and milk. Another monk “with a dark beard and a flushed face” barges in, calling the birds in the rafters “demons” and “agents of the devil” (129-130). Father Brian calms him, and he leaves. After, Father Brian explains that Father Jonus, whom they have come to see, is unwell, and he’s not sure when the Abbott will allow the group to see Jonus.
Axl recalls Wistan and Gawain digging a grave for the fallen soldier. Gawain still insists that Wistan give up his quest to kill the dragon, but Wistan remains evasive. The memory of the fallen soldier and his skill in maneuvering brings Axl to another memory, even further back, when he was on horseback and strategically placing himself between Wistan and some innocent shepherds. He remembers, too, when he and Beatrice were first courting, and she taught him about a plant that is bad luck for unwed girls to touch. Axel wonders if that “[c]ould…have been the first time they conversed” (138).
Still recounting earlier events, Axl remembers a conversation with Wistan about the strategic advantage of chopping wood near the wood shed. Wistan was distrustful of the monks and explained to Axl that this monastery used to be a Saxon fortress used to defend against invaders. He explained that much blood was shed here and much hatred existed in the thoughts of those who lived here. Axl has a hard time believing him, to which Wistan responds, “You’re much the senior in years, Master Axl, but in matters of blood, it may be that I’m the elder and you the youth” (142). Wistan goes on to explain how the Britons took him as a young boy and brought him up as a Briton warrior. Wistan adds he would like to take Edwin to bring him up as a warrior, too.
Edwin, who has been off scouting, returns and leads the men to a cage in the middle of the woods. Wistan explains that the cage held up a man, so birds could peck at him. A monk spots them looking at the cage and leads them behind the town square. Axl reunites with Beatrice, who had been sleeping, and the group isthen taken in to see Father Jonus.
Father Jonus is sickly and scarred with blood. He asks to see Edwin’s wound first, but Wistan doesn’t allow it. Wistan claims that the monks are using the cage to self-flagellate, to atone for the evil of this place. They debate the idea of Christian mercy, and eventually Wistan softens, allowing Jonus to check Edwin. After a knowing look, Jonus prescribes an ointment for the boy.
Next, Beatrice asks Jonus about the mist and the forgetfulness. However, it’s Wistan who says, “It’s the dragon Querig, Mistress Beatrice, that roams these peaks. She’s the cause of the mist you speak of. Yet these monks here protect her and have done so for years” (154). Wistan also suspects that the monks have sent men to kill him. Father Jonus confirms this, and then asks Wistan why Lord Brennus pursues him so relentlessly. Wistan explains that he and Lord Brennus knew each other as youths.
Wistan and Edwin leave, and Beatrice learns that her wound is nothing serious. She discusseswith Jonus her real worries, which are the mist and the loss of memory. He asks her, “Is it not better for some things to remain hidden from our minds?” (157). She answers that all of her memories have led her to this point, and she wants to keep them.
Axl realizes that, amidst all his recounting, he fell asleep. He does not hear the sound of chopping outside anymore.
Chapter 7 Summary
Father Brianawakens Axl, Beatrice and Edwin and warns them that there are soldiers on the grounds that have captured Wistan. He leads them carefully down the stairs and sneaks them through old corridors. Father Brian asks them to go down a trapdoor, which will bring them to safety in the forest. Edwin, at first, wishes to go back and help Wistan, but finally concedes to go down the hole. Father Brian closes the door behind them “with what seemed a thunderous crash” (162). They are distrustful of the motives of Father Brian but have little choice now but to move down the cavern.
The group comes upon Sir Gawain, who explains that he came here, aided by a trustworthy monk, to help them escape the beast that awaits them: “The melancholy truthis the monks have deceived you. There’s a beast dwells down here and they mean you to perish by it” (164). He says that they want the boy, Edwin, dead most of all. Confused and mistrustful, but left with little choice, they follow Gawain through the halls.
While in the halls, Gawain keeps apologizing, admitting that it was he who gave away Wistan’s identity to the Abbott, explaining, “Was I to guess how dark the hearts of holy-men could turn?” (169). He also gets defensive when any mention of the bones, strewn about the cave, is made, as if Gawain himself is responsible for them in some way.
The group enters a large open room that has piles of bones on the floor. There’s a large gate that Gawain explains probably keeps the monster out or in. If they close the gate, they’ll be unable to escape to freedom. If they don’t, the monster will be able to reach them through it. They decide to close the gate, as it is easy to open again, should they need to.
Gawain reveals that Edwin’s wound is from the bite of a dragon, and “now the desire will be rising in his blood to seek congress with a she-dragon” (174). This is why everyone wants to cause Edwin harm. Again, Gawain feels defensive regarding the infant skulls in the chamber. Just then, the monster appears.
Gawain and Edwin devise a plan to lure the dog-like beast, who seems to be drawn toward Edwin. With Edwin at a distance, Axl and Beatrice lift the gate. The monster leaps forth. Gawain swings at it with his sword. The monster runs headless past Edwin into the cavern.
The group reaches the forest again, but Edwin is missing. Gawain says he saw him running back toward the monastery but did not have the energy to stop him. Axl is reminded by Gawain of some task that he was given in the past, and feels that he might have known Gawain previously. Gawain evades his questions and leaves them. Alone, Axl and Beatrice decide to rest a moment before continuing their journey. Beatrice says, “Our son must be wondering what keeps us” (181).
Chapter 8 Summary
Edwin travels with a young monk to the place where Wistan lies injured but not dead. The young monk, once talkative, is now “curt” with Edwin (182).
Edwin feels bad for abandoning Wistanand begins recounting the events that led him here. Once he emerged from the cavern, Edwin ran immediately back to the monastery, sneaking past the monk’s houses. Father Ninian, who had helped them earlier, appeared, and led Edwin away.
The previous day, as Edwin continues to recount, Wistan and Edwin chopped wood and collected bales of “pure” hay into a cart (186). Edwin wonders if maybe it was his mother’s voice that called to him in his dreams that caused him to oversleep and leave Wistan on his own. He also felt his mother’s voice calling him from inside the caverns, and he yearned to go rescue her.
The young monk takes him on a shortcut via a safer passage. Edwin drifts back to memory again, this time of a young girl he happened upon in the woods outside of his village. She was tied up in the grass and struggling to escape. She told Edwin to go away because there were three boys who would beat him up if he they saw him. Undaunted, Edwin untied her. She asked him why he didn’t help his mother, who bandits took when Edwin was small. This thought bothers Edwin. He cannot be sure if it was his mother’s voice that drew him into the caverns or his fear of the soldiers.
Again thinking back to previous day with Wistan, he recalls how Wistan helped him learn about the real use of the tower that sat in the middle of the monastery. Edwin discovered that the tower was a defensive structure meant to lure a group of soldiers in and then trap them inside by setting it ablaze. Wistan says, “I wonder if these Christian monks have any inkling of what went on here once?” (193). Edwin realizes that the wood and hay are for a trap that Wistanhimself planned to set there. Edwin again feels bad that he could not be there to aid Wistan, and hopes that Wistan will want to continue his training of Edwin.
The young monk leads Edwin through a brook. Edwin wonders why the young monk has grown so quiet of late. Earlier, the monk explained much about what happened to Wistan during the battle and after. Wistan successfully drew the men into the tower, set it ablaze, and was found later wandering in the woods, having escaped. Father Jonus, upon the arrival of Edwin from the forest, decided that Edwin should be reunited with Wistan, and that this young monk would serve as Edwin’s guide.
Part Two, Chapters 6-8 Analysis
In Part Two of the novel, Beatrice and Axl realize that they have entered into a place that holds even more dark mystery than they experienced before. They’re beginning to realize that no one seems to be honest about either their intentions or their motivations for helping them—if those around Beatrice and Axl do actually mean to help them. Wistan keeps withholding information from the couple and from those around him, information that might prove vital to their survival. Sir Gawain reveals Wistan’s identity to the Abbott, and then claims to want to help the couple escape. The monks of the monastery seem split on wanting to help the group or have them killed.
Memory remains a central theme of Part Two, but now Ishiguro explores how certain characters might be using the mist, which is the dragon’s breath, to allow them to forget memories that are too painful to bear. Sir Gawain, while travelling with Axl, Edwin and Beatrice through the caverns, continually becomes defensive regarding the possibility that he is responsible for the bones in the cavern, despite the fact that no one has accused him of it. Gawain lets on that he may be responsible for burial chambers such as the one they’re in: “The enemy in their hundreds, perhaps as many as this. I fought and I fought. Just a foolish memory, but I still recall it” (173). Here, Gawain lets on that he, too, has trouble distinguishing what is real in his past, and the possibility of his contributing to mass death frightens him. The monks of the monastery,who help to protect the dragon, also work to atone for some misdeeds of their past, and of their present. The mist, which they work to sustain, causes them to forget their misdeeds, thus easing their burden and guilt. To appease God for protecting such an evil, they even go to the length of sacrificing themselves to the birds. In Part Two, the reader gets the sense that some people in the novel would rather have the mist remain to keep from remembering painful things. Beatrice, however, remains steadfast in her zeal to remember all of her memories, good or bad.
The theme of aging also continues to be explored in Part Two, as the characters who are the most aged—Axl, Beatrice, Father Jonus, Father Brian—are the characters who seem to have the most agency, and the most potential to make the right decisions. However, Father Brian’s motives remain unclear.
Related Titles
By Kazuo Ishiguro
