In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day, it is 1956 and aging butler Stevens’ new American employer, Mr. Faraday, urges him to take some time off and offers him the use of his car. Faraday is leaving for an extended trip to America so Stevens’ services won’t be needed for several weeks. Stevens is reluctant at first. His lifelong commitment to his duties as a butler and his deep sense of dignity as an English butler would have prevented him from ever asking for such a privilege. However, after serving for thirty years at Darlington Hall for the previous owner, Lord Darlington, he is feeling somewhat unmoored by the changes in his professional responsibilities and by the changes in British society. Stevens initially has no interest in taking a trip in Faraday’s car, but on further consideration, decides that he can use the trip as an opportunity to visit with Miss Kenton, a former Darlington Hall housekeeper, who had recently written to him. Stevens hopes that he may be able to convince her to come back to work at Darlington Hall, thus satisfying his need to place duty above all personal concerns. What follows is a six-day journey through the English countryside that Stevens documents as a diarist. During this trip, Stevens recalls significant events in his life at Darlington Hall that slowly reveal truths about his life choices that he has been unwilling to face for the past thirty years.Stevens’ narrative voice formal to the point of indication that he is under a self-imposed demand that he suppress any outward sign of emotion. We very quickly learn that he is fastidious to a fault and always has to justify anything he does as his “duty,” and he has a tendency to overthink things and get mired in endless detail:
For all that, I could not for some days quite bring myself to raise the matter again with Mr. Farraday. There were, in any case, various aspects of the matter I felt I needed to clarify to myself before proceeding any further. There was, for instance, the question of cost. For even taking into account my employer’s generous offer to ‘foot the bill for the gas,’ the costs of such a trip might still come to a surprising amount considering such matters as accommodation, meals, and any small snacks I might partake of on my way. [emphasis added]. Then there was the question of what sorts of costume were appropriate on such a journey, and whether or not it was worth my while to invest in a new set of clothes.
We can see that there are no lengths that Stevens won’t go to in order to avoid enjoying himself. His obvious long-windedness is one of the comic elements of the novel that we see—and Stevens only gradually realizes–is an avoidance strategy. In spite of Stevens’ insistence on appearing to be rational and thoughtful, considering things from all different perspectives, he is an unreliable narrator, and his reserve and dignity are façades. He may be trying to sound like Nick Caraway, but he has Holden Caulfield’s defense mechanisms.
The narrative structure of The Remains of the Day is complex. There are, in fact, two narratives—past and present—told in parallel. The present tense narrative, the six-day road trip, provides the triggers for Stevens’ memories that make up the past tense story. A novel such as this, in the hands of a lesser author, could have consisted entirely of Stevens’ memories and lack any present action. Each of the two stories, however, has its own dramatic arc, and past and present provide context for one another, and both reach their conclusions at the end of the novel.
In the morning of Day Two, Stevens discusses the letter he has received from Miss Kenton, reading between the lines that her marriage is over and she is considering returning to Darlington Hall:
It is, of course, tragic that her marriage is now ending in failure. At this very moment, no doubt, she is pondering with regret decisions made in the far-off past that have now left her, deep in middle age, so alone and desolate. And it is easy to see how in such a frame of mind, the thought of returning to Darlington Hall would be a great comfort to her. Admittedly, she does not at any point in her letter explicitly state her desire to return; but that is the unmistakable message conveyed by the general nuance of many of the passages, imbued as they are with a deep nostalgia for her days at Darlington Hall.
This is pure conjecture on Stevens’ part, and more than likely is a projection of how he really feels about his decisions made in the far-off past.
This triggers Stevens’ memory of how Miss Kenton and Steven’s father came to work at Darlington Hall in 1922. Stevens had lost at the same time, a housekeeper and an under-butler who had decided to marry and leave their professions. His father’s previous employer had recently died, and the elder Mr. Stevens was adrift and at a loss for what to do, paralleling Stevens’ current state of affairs with his new employer. Stevens also uses this event to criticize housekeepers and butlers who fall in love and leave their professions:
Of course, if two members of the staff happen to fall in love and decide to marry, it would be churlish to be apportioning blame; but what I find a major irritation are those persons—and housekeepers are particularly guilty here—who have no genuine commitment to their profession and who are essentially going from post to post looking for romance. This sort of person is a blight on good professionalism.
This is a rather harsh judgment, and it is ironic for several reasons. First, Miss Kenton herself eventually left the profession to get married. Second, the regret about those decisions in the far-off past in the previously quoted passage could be his own for the decision he made twenty years earlier to not have a relationship with Miss Kenton.
The past and present resonate dramatically with one another in this passage from Miss Kenton’s letter:
‘If this is a painful memory, forgive me. But I will never forget that time we both watched your father walking back and forth in front of the summerhouse, looking down at the ground as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there.’
Stevens is perfectly capable of correctly interpreting the symbolism of that memory as it applies to Miss Kenton but is unable to turn that interpretation inward.
Stevens’ slavish devotion to duty and maintaining dignity reaches a peak during the post-war conference held at Darlington Hall. Stevens’ father has a stroke and is bedridden. Stevens continues his duties attending to others in spite of his father’s illness. Finally, it is Miss Kenton who informs Stevens that his father has died, and again, Stevens returns to his duties. It was probably that behavior that told Miss Kenton that a romantic relationship with Stevens was not a possibility.
Several years later, there is a secret meeting at Darlington Hall with Lord Darlington, the British Prime Minister, and the British foreign secretary. Stevens discovers that Lord Darlington is being manipulated by the Nazis. This coincides with Miss Kenton’s announcement that she is to be married. In the end, Stevens is proud that he has maintained his dignity through the trying events of the day.
On the sixth day of his journey, he finally meets with Miss Kenton, now Mrs, Benn. They catch each other up on their lives for the past twenty years. Lord Darlington, he tells her, died a broken man having been exposed and disgraced as a Nazi sympathizer. He discovers that although she sometimes wonders what life might have been like if they that shared their lives, she has grown to love her husband and the life they have made for themselves. Stevens’ heart brakes when he realizes that he chose empty loyalty to a man who did not deserve it over a life with Miss Kenton.
These two narratives are carefully crafted so that they resonate with one another. This allows the themes in both timelines to be introduced at the same time and to play off one another. It also allows for economical storytelling. Together the two stories cover a time span of about thirty years. By driving the present action over a period of six days, the past tense story needs to cover only the significant, dramatic events.
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