The Remains of the Day

The 1989 Booker Prize winner, The Remains of the Day, is Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro’s most realistic novel. Set in post-World War II Britain, it traces the life of Stevens, a butler, who grapples with his undisputed loyalty towards his employer Lord Darlington. As our first-person narrator, he believes Lord Darlington to be a “great gentleman” who has a positive impact on humanity. Stevens ultimately overlooks Darlington’s growing antisemitic political stance and disregards critical thinking to adopt these opinions as his own. It is a story profoundly interlinked with class, power, history, and our own blindness to our feelings. I read this book as part of the Imperial Book Club, which voted the novel their “Summer Read”, with the ironic agreement that such a designation called for a heart-heavy novel that mirrors the great emotional complexities of the human race.

The novel flips between past and present, but much of it takes place in Stevens’ memories. He recounts his life working at Darlington Hall in the British countryside, before his current American employer. These flashbacks and the story itself – recounted and written in his diary in the evenings – are triggered by a letter from a former Darlington Hall employee by the name of Miss Kenton. As a result of the letter, Stevens takes leave for six days, during which he journeys in his American employer’s car towards Miss Kenton’s village in hopes that she returns to work with him.

The reader can tell, however, that Stevens merely convinces himself that Miss Kenton misses Darlington Hall, since her letter does not mention a desire to return. We get a sense that Stevens is in love with Miss Kenton, though he never admits his true feelings, lying to himself and justifying his actions as purely “professional”. Stevens rationalises her importance in his life by conflating it with her importance as the former head housekeeper. Further, he refers to her as Miss Kenton – her unmarried name – only in his writings, yet addresses her by her proper name Mrs Benn when directly speaking to her during their meeting.

In relation to our modern lives, Stevens’ week off can be compared to a week off electronics and social media, which forces us to reflect on ourselves without distraction and appreciate what is right in front of us, including the natural world. For our narrator, descriptions of the English countryside contain the deep admiration of a man seeing nature for the first time. Despite living in the area, we as readers start to wonder if he ever allowed himself to step out of Darlington Hall.

It is as if Stevens himself cannot spend too long in the present

During this trip, we get a glimpse of Stevens’ daily experiences, while simultaneously witnessing his reminiscences as a professional butler. It is often as if Stevens himself cannot spend too long in the present, relating everything back to his work and the self-defined purpose that limits his perspective. Despite this inability to live in the present, Stevens’ recollections seem idealised, rendering him an unreliable narrator.

In his writings, Stevens recounts his father, also a butler, who taught him the idea of “dignity” in the profession. His father defines dignity as correlated to absolute loyalty to one’s employer, and rejection of his personal life seems to be ingrained in his mindset. Particularly striking is Stevens’ belief that his father, who worked under him in Darlington Hall despite his old age and poor health, would admire his dignity in attending to the great Lord Darlington in the dining room downstairs while his father was dying upstairs. However, we never get information about his mother, or the conditions in which Stevens grew up, which raises questions about his upbringing. Did Stevens merely follow his father around as a child? Stevens writes, “Nobody should see a butler when he is not working,” and we wonder how he has become so alienated from his emotions to the point that he rejects his feelings and identity.

To illustrate Stevens’ self-defined and entrapping purpose, we can also pay attention to his language and the writing style. His writing is refined, almost mechanical, lacking any natural “banter” as Stevens himself admits. This manner of writing reflects his general cognitive dissonance around his position in society.

We also see this when Stevens spends one night in a village near Miss Kenton’s, kindly hosted by a married couple. The couple invite others from the village to join them for dinner, believing Stevens to be a man of great importance to society. Instead of correcting them, Stevens plays along with this imaginary role. Perhaps he no longer wants to be a man with a poor reputation; still, he justi es this behaviour to himself as an act of protecting his former employer’s privacy, rather than admitting that he struggles with self-acceptance.

This rejection of his status may have also been motivated by Stevens’ treatment by Lord Darlington. As recounted in a flashback, one evening Stevens is asked by Lord Darlington and his political guests to express his opinions on political matters, something he is unable to do due to a lack of knowledge. This is met with mocking laughter, and justifications of the need for the common people to leave important matters in the hands of the leaders. As such, the reader is faced with an uncomfortable question about the absolute nature of democracy, and whether political decisions should be left to those whose knowledge of such matters is limited. Perhaps Stevens believed, like other common men of his time, that he did not deserve to form an opinion because his environment had shaped him into serving those who would. This is paralleled by his lack of agency and total subservience towards his employer on the smaller scale.

At the end of the novel, Stevens tells of his favourite time of the day, evening. Ishiguro uses this image to suggest that this time – “the remains of the day” (hence the title) – is an opportunity to  nally understand and ruminate over the uncontrollable things, and that it serves little purpose. Although Stevens captures this beautiful metaphor, he tragically fails to achieve this very self-reflection and growth. Ironically, by the end of the novel, Stevens does realise that Lord Darlington was in fact not the man he thought. However, he does so only when Lord Darlington loses his reputation due to previous relations and support for Nazis and Blackshirts – not because Stevens himself sees the fault in Darlington’s actions.

Altogether, The Remains of the Day is a lesson on class autonomy, purpose, the illusion of choice, and what remains in our lives once our black-and-white perceptions of the world are threatened.