Commentary on review of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day, Stevens, once the butler of Lord Darlington, goes on a ‘work-related’ trip to visit Miss Kenton, who also once worked under Lord Darlington. During this trip, Stevens deeply reviews and reflects on his actions during Lord Darlington’s days, recalling his glorious moments and embarrassing instants. I agree that throughout the novel, Stevens acts like what he insisted himself to be – a ‘professional’ butler who does not reveal his inner emotions at all; but I believe the author intended more to Stevens’ character.

Throughout the days of Stevens’ trip, he consistently pondered on the qualities that constitute a ‘great’ butler, repeatedly informing the reader on how he proved to be one of them in Lord Darlington’s days. He recalls memories of him displaying the ‘professionalism’ he was required to, for example the day which his father passed away. That day, Lord Darlington was holding a large-scale conference at Darlington Hall, in which many foreign ambassadors attended. It was on such a grand occasion that Stevens’ father, Mr. Stevens Senior, fell terribly ill, and soon after, passed away. But Stevens, as he himself claims, was indifferent to this incident, as he had to serve the distinguished guests currently at Darlington Hall, and he accomplished his task ‘perfectly’ without being influenced by his father’s death. This, as Stevens claims, is the way a professional butler should put up – work first, personal matters next. Episodes such as the above mentioned have been scattered at all parts of the novel to ‘glorify’ Stevens’ ‘professionalism’ towards his career.

But what most of us do not realize, is that Mr. Ishiguro has portrayed Stevens as a egotistic hypocrite – one who suppresses his true inner self for the sake of an attempt, to convince himself that he has not wasted the thirty years or so under Lord Darlington. Stevens has, throughout his flashbacks, constantly reminded the reader (or even himself) that the mistakes he made were, in fact, due to external factors, and he has done the best any human could possibly do. For instance, even as he was discovered by Miss Kenton reading some stories of romance, he insisted that it was solely due to the need of improving his command of the language; but the main reason of him reading the book was more inclined to the fact that he felt entertained by the stories, as Stevens reveals that he “did at times gain a sort of incidental enjoyment from these stories”, but immediately refutes that as the root cause of him reading. This shows the unstable emotions Stevens has, shifting from his ‘professionalism’ mindset in career to his desire to take time off to enjoy his life, and back. This is still evident, after almost twenty years, when he talks of his staff plans under Mr. Farraday. Soon after he mentions the shortcomings in the current staff plan, he instantaneously blames it on the lack of manpower, and that he has done his best. Thus, it can be seen that this is his intrinsic nature, which he cannot erase regardless of how ‘professional’ he is.

It is also possible that Stevens is just too clumsy when he is with Miss Kenton; not that they are in a solely ‘professional’ work-related relationship. We would not know the truth, but I speculate that the reason why Stevens decided to take the trip to Miss Kenton was not only due to the lack of manpower in Darlington Hall, but also due to his longing to meet her. Although Stevens puts that idea off totally, he could be just deceiving himself, like what he frequently does when he makes mistakes. At the end of the trip, when he finally meets Miss Kenton, both sides did not feel fully comfortable at talking to each other again, after such a long separation. If the relationship was strictly work-related, this would not have happened. But both sides knew, deep within, that they were in love with each other; this possibly caused the uneasiness they experienced. This is strong evidence to suggest that the relationship between them was hardly work-related. Miss Kenton’s love for Stevens can also be inferred from the letters she sent to Stevens; she expresses her ‘will’ to go back to Darlington Hall and work together with Stevens again. But when she is confronted by Stevens, she becomes unnecessarily shy, thus lying off that she was getting along well with her husband after all.

We cannot be totally sure what Mr. Ishiguro intended Stevens to be; it could actually be something nobody ever thought of. But the above hypotheses are ultimately possible; I thereby insist that Stevens’ character is far more complicated than what the author of the review assumed to be.

Review address: http://thebookladysblog.com/2008/12/31/book-review-the-remains-of-the-day-by-kazuo-ishiguro/