notes and preparation on the theme butlers and dignity, The remains of the day

Butlers and Dignity

-Remains of the Day-


The Remains of the Day is a novel written by Kazuro Ishiguro in 1989. In the novel we follow the central character, Stevens, on a six-day-trip. Stevens, the butler, regards himself as a professional butler and squanders his life on improving his dignity and professionalism as a butler. During the novel, the reader comprehends his painful life and past.
Butlers and dignity are two themes in the novel, which might play a part of Stevens’ unhappiness. These two themes are present throughout the whole novel.

Stevens’ unhappiness, as I mentioned above, may be a consequence of his occupation. Being a butler, was not Steven’s genuine choice. He wanted to become a great butler, because it was the only way that a butler’s son could influence the course of events positively. Stevens’ devotion to his vocation and the dignity that is related to his profession is giving him an identity that gives him the role of admirer of life. Stevens converses about how true Butlers must behave and structure their dignity. Throughout the novel he uses his position as a British butler to justify himself.

“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 by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing, they wear the professionalism as a decent gentlemen will wear his suite; he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he is entirely alone. It is as I say a matter off dignity.”

During the years, Stevens’s personality, interests and behavior are merged together into one professional butler. This becomes “his suite” that he never takes off. This turned Stevens into a day-night professional with “the suit” on. Stevens acts fully professionally. Even the novel is written in such way. Since it is a diary, the reader expects it to be like most diaries: personal, subjective, full of confessions and emotions. As a replacement for such, the diary is composed of structured memories and considerations of butlers. Every single thought is described and analyzed from a butler’s professional point of view.



His vocation correlates with dignity. Stevens considers hid duty in the following way:
“My vocation will not be fulfilled until I have done all that I can to see his lordship through the great tasks that he has set himself. Only on that day I will be able to call myself a well-contented man.”

This example proves how devoted Stevens was to Darlington. This, in combination with the struggle for achieving impeccable perfection within his vocation, gives Stevens the role of a passive admirer of life which analyzes his past through ‘corrective lenses’.

According to Stevens, he is not simply a perfect reflection of Britain’s dignity and perfect butlers, but also a factor that contributed to history through his work:

“The state of the silver had made a small, but significant contribution towards the easing of relations between the two gentlemen that evening. Something so trivial, would affect the rest of the world.”

Even though he may have increased the future Nazi influence in Britain, he did not realize this fact. This error occurred because of the ‘corrective lenses’ that I mentioned above.