The Remains of the Day

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final section in The Great Gatsby is a reminder that we can’t escape the past. No matter how hard we attempt to steer an onward course, the tide of memory will pull us back.

Stevens in The Remains of the Day is a man that can’t shake his past. He is the butler assigned to tell the story. Unlike the clean precision he undertakes work, his storytelling is messy, less sequential; time periods fall in and out of one another, all coalescing to tell a tale of faint hopes, of vanquished dreams.

Ishiguro’s book is ostensibly set in 1950’s post-war Britain. The 1950’s was a period where for the first time in a long while the country could ask itself, ‘Who should we be?’ The years preceding were brutal bloodbaths with The Great Depression bringing the country to its knees and the second war pistol-whipping it to the ground. With the appointment of a Labour government, the old order had been shown the door – the proletariat would rule the world. Although the Conservatives of Churchill and Eden would reclaim office, there was a sense that Britain would never be the same again. This is the context for the novel. Stevens, the butler, whom has served Lord Darlington for thirty-five years must now work for an American, Mr Faraday. New money has replaced old. Formality is off the menu; informality the new order of the day.

The electorate showed Churchill the V. (They eventually let him come back.)

With Stevens new boss being unaccustomed to the old ways, he quickly demands his butler has some time off. For Stevens this is an unusual request: under Lord Darlington he was used to working all hours of the day with little rest. In fact, any allotted period of repose was spent studying, reading books that would aid deportment and conversation. Life for Stevens was an examination that he continuosly prepared for. Although he is somewhat bemused by the American concept of vacation, he sees it as an opportunity to visit the House’s former housemaid Miss Kenton- now the married Mrs Benn. Stevens purports the visit to be merely business: the House could again benefit from Mrs Benn’s expertise, and given her letter talked of marriage troubles, it appears she would be open a return. However, over the course of the book, we find this assignation may have an ulterior motive.

So Stevens leaves the gates of Darlington House, a metaphor you feel for the prison of his mind. As he drives west towards Cornwall, the open roads unspool Stevens, gradually disclosing his thoughts on work, class and leisure. A telling incident occurs at his first stop, where he looks out on the English countryside, eulogising: “What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.” This is indicative of how Stevens sees people: he admires understatement, composure and subtlety. Anyone that offers anything more is crass, indecent, showy.

Stevens departs Darlington House.

We see Stevens’ ideal of beauty in the description of his work. Throughout the book there is the repeated noun of ‘dignity;’ Stevens sees dignity as a distinction few can claim. His father, a butler had it. He feels that he has it too. Dignity for Stevens is putting personal interest to one side in the name of service. His father’s anecdotes on great butlers have indoctrinated Stevens to believe that the people behind the curtain are as vital as the people in front. Yes, the main players get the cheers and glory, but it's the stagehands that make the performance possible. Even though they may never take a bow, the pleasure comes from providing the right conditions for the great and the good to excel. Dignity is knowing your station and maintaining it for the benefit of your superior.

This ‘dignity’ though comes at a cost. When Stevens recollects on his father’s illness, we see the human tragedy in his conditioning. Stevens recounts the story of Lord Darlington holding a conference to discuss the ‘punitive’ Treaty of Versailles. Whilst Stevens’ father lies dying in the upstairs room, a French dignitary requests assistance for a sore foot. Who Stevens attend to first is no surprise. In many ways Stevens is like Boxer, the workhouse of Orwell’s Animal Farm, embodying the mantra, “We must work harder.” Herein lies the genius of Ishiguro’s work, for Stevens isn’t working for a noble cause: the sympathy Lord Darlington holds for post-war Germany is just the start. When Stevens must sack Jewish staff and welcome Hitler’s foreign minister the maxim of a ‘dignified silence’ is put under the microscope – only Stevens refuses to look.

For Stevens everything must be 'just so.'

This rejection of self-reflection is not surprising. If you have respected someone for a large period of time, that reverence will not suddenly diminish when they're exposed. We’ve seen it recently with Louis Theroux’s Savile documentary. In it, his PA struggled to countenance Savile's crimes; to her he was a good, kind man. In the recent Bill Cosby documentary, a co-star couldn’t comprehend the star's abuses until other friends told them he did it to them. Stockholm Syndrome isn’t confined to people forced into captivity, sometimes it happens to people who walk willingly into it.

The journey Stevens takes away from Darlington House is we hope a metaphor for him getting away from a life of servitude and obedience. With Miss Kenton, a compassionate soul on the horizon, we the reader pray that Stevens is moving towards some kind of emotional liberation. Does he claim the green light like Jay Gatsby? Or is he borne back ceaselessly into the past? In these days of sun, locate the book and find out. 

The Remains of the Day is available from all good bookshops.