The journey motif is a deceptively simple structural device; the farther
Stevens travels from Darlington Hall, it seems, the closer he comes to
understanding his life there. But in Stevens's travel journal Ishiguro
shapes an ironic, elliptical narrative that reveals far more to the reader
than it does to Stevens. The butler believes, for instance, that he makes
his trip for "professional" reasons, to persuade a former housekeeper,
Miss Kenton, to return to Darlington Hall. But through deftly managed flashbacks
and
Stevens's naive admissions, the reader sees instead that the matter
is highly personal: Stevens had loved Miss Kenton but let her marry another
man; he now wishes to make up for lost time, to correct the mistakes of
his past.
More important than that veiled love story--but intimately connected
with it--is the matter of Lord Darlington, and the degree to which Stevens's
sense of self is founded upon his belief in Darlington's greatness. It
becomes clear enough to the reader, though Stevens is long in admitting
it to himself, that Darlington had been a political pawn of fascism and
the Nazis--unwitting perhaps, misguided no doubt, but hardly the "great
man" that Stevens had deceived himself into believing he served. These
revelations
are made through a delicate and powerful process: as Stevens's journal
shifts between travelogue, personal memoir and reflections on his profession,
his memory slides continually between Darlington Hall in the ruined, empty
present, the height of Darlington's influence (and Stevens's pride) in
the 1920s, and the tense, disturbing pre-war 1930s. Carefully elided from
consideration, repressed and hidden, are the war years themselves and their
immediate aftermath. We know they are there, of course, and we may guess
what they meant at Darlington Hall, but Stevens's memorial archaeology
leaves that particular
tomb unexcavated.
In the end, Stevens must come to some sense of resignation and resolution, both about Darlington and about himself. The source of Stevens's pride is also, after all, potentially the source of his shame. He was willing enough to shine in the light of Darlington's greatness, and now must either share in his disgrace or, what is perhaps more difficult, admit that his own dedicated and deeply considered "professionalism" has had no real part to play on the stage of world history.
Like all great novels, The Remains of the Day is an organic work, its
parts perfectly integrated, every scene imaging the whole. In his carefully
controlled prose, so perfectly suited to his narrator, in his effortless
movement among several different time settings, in his almost magical evocation
of simultaneous humor and pathos, Ishiguro proves himself a masterful artist
in full command of his elements. And in this novel, those elements combine
to form a profound psychological and cultural
portrait that reveals the author's great abiding theme: the art and
artifice of memory.
volver
© Dr.Gregorian O´Dea
UC Foundation Associate Professor of English, UTC 1995