Winner of the Booker Prize in 1989 for Best Fiction, Kazuo Ishiguro's The remains of the day is one of the highly-regarded post-war British novels. The novel tells the story of an English butler who dedicates his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington, an English gentleman, in Darlington Hall.
The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his insular world in postwar England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving "a great gentleman." But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness" and more serious doubts about his own faith in the man he served.
The novel presents England as seen through the eyes of Stevens, one of the last remaining true butlers, who lives only to do his duty, to serve his master and humanity in the hope of preserving justice throughout the world.
Stevens is trying hard throughout the novel to find a definition of dignity.
"And let me now posit this: 'dignity' has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits. Lesser butlers will abandon their professional being for the private one at the least provocation. For such persons, being a butler is like playing some pantomime role; a small push, a slight stumble, and the facade will drop off to reveal the actor underneath. The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of 'dignity'. It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only menservants. I tend to believe this is true."
"A butler of any quality must be seen to -inhabit- his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to do it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantomime costume. There is one situation and one situation only in which a butler who cares about his dignity may feel free to unburden himself of his role; that is to say, when he is entirely alone."
The most important aspect of Stevens' life is his dignity as an English butler. Such aspects of refined dignity, especially when applied under stressful situations, are, to Stevens, what define a "great butler." As such, Stevens constantly maintains an inward and outward sense of dignity in order to preserve his own identity. These philosophies of dignity, however, greatly affect his life, largely in regards to social constraints, loyalty and politics, and love and relationships. By preserving dignity at the expense of such emotions, Stevens, in a way, loses his sense of humanity in regards to his own personal self. Stevens' primary struggle within the novel is how his dignity relates to his own experiences, as well as the role his dignity plays in the past, present, and future. An extremely precise man, his relentless pursuit of "dignity" leads him to constantly deny his own feelings throughout the novel. For Stevens, "dignity" involves donning a mask of professional poise at all times. Although there is merit in the ideas of polite behaviour and loyalty, Stevens takes these concepts to an extreme. He never tells anyone what he is truly feeling, and he gives his absolute trust to Lord Darlington--a man who himself makes some very poor choices in his life. Although throughout much of the story it seems that Stevens is quite content to have served Lord Darlington, believing that Darlington was doing noble
Primary sources
1. Kazuo Ishiguro, The remains of the day, London, Faber & Faber Limited, 1989
Secondary sources
2. http://www.scribd.com/doc/12648737/Kazuo-Ishiguro-The-Remains-of-the-Day
3. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/remains/section3.rhtml
4. http://www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/vorschau/12646.html
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