Literary Reviews

I have included reviews made by some authors I have found through the Net, but I have to say that I absolutely don´t want to violate any copyright, and neither pretend I´m the author of this writing. The links where this is extracted can be found at the end.

Some Questions about Literary Relations for Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day
Ishiguro's novel grows out of several traditions within English literature. In some ways it is a kind of novel of manners, reminiscent of a writer like Jane Austen; in other important ways it is an historical novel, weaving personal and world histories in a manner similar to Graham Swift's Waterland.
Along very different lines the novel partakes, if only ironically, in the popular genre of "butler liteterature," especially popularized by the series of novels about Jeeves the butler, by P. G. Wodehouse.

Finally, the novel's style of narration is reminiscent of the tradition in narrative poetry of the dramatic monologue. That is, the speaking narrating voice in the novel is not only in the first person, but addresses an implied narratee whose "active absence" structures a motivating tension that requires self-explanation and examination, moving the speaking character to some moment of revelation or self-discovery.

The Rejection of Women in "In Custody," "The Remains of the Day," and "Once Were Warriors."
Phoebe Koch, English 27, Brown University, 1997
Deven's attempts at keeping himself aloof from the rest of the world are similar to those of Stevens in The Remains of the Day. In aspiring to be a butler of great dignity, Stevens feels that he "should never allow himself to be 'off duty' in the presence of others."(169) An overly polite and humble manner characterize Stevens' persona, as does a tendency to repress all emotion. After all, he reasons, "a butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were a pantomime costume."(169) Stevens' unwillingness to remove his costume of propriety and abandon his constant reserve cost him dearly. He represses his emotions to such an extent that he is unable to recognize his tender feelings towards Miss Kenton. She in turn must finally abandon him. Thus Stevens' myopic view of the world leaves him isolated from others, and prevents him from forming close human bonds.

Jake "the Muss" Heke is similarly isolated from friends and family by qualities in which he takes great pride -- in this case his threatening nature and violent temper. Jake's wife and children tiptoe around him in the hopes of avoiding his wrath. It seems that Jake, like other male protagonists, derives strength from his feelings of superiority over an "other," weaker being. Women often assume this role in the mind of male protagonists. Because women and the feelings they evoke reveal the weakness of characters such as Deven and Stevens, they are shut out or dominated. In Once Were Warriors female sexuality also poses such a threat to Jake Heke:

Jake winking at her. Beth hoping it meant what she thought it did. Careful not to wink back because he didn't like the woman to be the instigator of that particular activity, nosiree he didn't. Sex was a man's choice first and foremost; in fact, a woman was careful she didn't show she enjoyed it too much or it made Jake wild, he'd start asking questions, or sulk, or not touch her for another month. (14)

Beth's sexuality threatens Jake's power over her. Harboring little command over the outside world, Jake feels the need to exercise his power over what he can control. His constant need to dominate the people around him, and his rejection of female sexuality (and affection between husband and wife) plays a large part in Jake's isolation.

The rejection of women and female sexuality also plays a major role in Desai's novel. Deven's greatest sin lies in his refusal to read the verses of Nur's wife, Imtiaz Begum, who sends him her poetry in the hopes that he will recognize her talent. She writes in her letter,

Let me see if you are strong enough to face [my poems] and admit to their merit. Or if they fill you with fear and insecurity because they threaten you with danger-- danger that your superiority to women may become questionable. When you rose to your feet and left the mehfil while I was singing my verse, was it not because you feared I might eclipse the verse of Nur Sahib and other male poets whom you revere? Was it not intolerable to you that a woman should match their gifts and even outstrip them? Are you not guilty of assuming that because you are a male you have a right to brains, talent, reputation and achievement, while I, because I was born female, am condemned to find what satisfaction I can in being maligned, mocked, ignored and neglected?(196)

Nur's wife provides Deven with the opportunity both he and Murad have been waiting for-- the chance to revive Urdu poetry. The arrival of Imtiaz' letter lifts the readers hopes; it seems as if Deven will finally be able to redeem himself through unveiling her poetry. For a moment the reader glimpses a ray of hope, as

The elegance and floridity of [Imtiaz Begum's] Urdu entered Deven's ears like a flourish of trumpets and beat at his temples while he read. The essential, unsuspected spirit of the woman appeared to step free of all its covering, all the tinsel and gauze and tawdriness, and reveal a face from which the paint and powder had been washed and which wore an expression that made Deven halt and stumble before he could read on. (195)

However, the reader's expectations are soon crushed. Deven not only refuses to read her poetry, he goes so far as to rip it into pieces and discard it. As Imtiaz had feared and predicted,

Deven did not have the courage. He did not have the time. He did not have the wherewithal to deal with this new presence, one he had been happy to ignore earlier and relegate to the grotesque world of hysterics, termagents, viragos, the demented and the outcast. It was not for the timid and circumspect to enter that world on a mission of mercy or rescue. If he were to venture into it, what he learnt would destroy him as a moment of lucidity can destroy the merciful delusions of a madman. He could not allow that. (197)

Thus Deven is among the "timid and circumspect," unable to take the step forward out of his safe and hopeless world and prove himself to be other than a worthless failure. Imtiaz Begum symbolizes all that Deven fears in the female sex. This is most clear when he becomes audience to her birthday performance. When he takes the time to listen to her sing, he thinks

Oh, it was all very beautiful, very feeling, very clever. Oh, she had learnt her tricks very well, the monkey. Did she not have the best teacher in the world to put these images, this language into her head? (82)

Clearly Nur's wife possesses talents, however Deven is too blinded by his own prejudices to realize them. Not only does her performance evoke feelings of disgust on his part, Deven seems to feel true rage towards the woman on stage and her appreciative audience. He charges her with stealing Nur's verse; belittling her talents by labeling the performance a well-rehearsed act. Harshly accusing her of belonging "to that familiar female mafia," Deven obviously feels threatened in the midst of the "conviviality of steamy femininity" (83) which surrounds him. One can imagine such an atmosphere to be the subject of Deven's nightmares-- the incarnation of his greatest fears. "Just as he does not want to disturb his depressing, yet comforting world of failure by striving, so, too, he does not wish to recognize any truths that might destabilize his world."

Merging Past and Present: Finding Strength in the Wake of Colonialism
Phoebe Koch, English 27, Brown University, 1997
Jayadev: We should have taken physics, chemistry, microbiology, computer technology -- something scientific, something American. Then we would have had a future.

Deven: We have no future. There is no future. There is only past.

Jayadev: What is all this past-fast stuff? I am sick of it. It is the only thing we know in this country. History teaches us the glorious past of our ancient land. Hindi and Sanskrit teachers teach us the glorious literature of the past. I am sick of that. What about the future? (186) 

This conversation between two characters in Anita Desai's In Custody reflects frustrations with the past similar to those voiced by Tom Crick's cheeky student in Swift's Waterland. Jayadev's rejection of the past and Deven's rejection of the future represent their inability to find a happy medium -- a place where past and present meet. The struggles of many such characters in the post-colonial literature we have read paint a picture of confusion, conflict, and contradiction-- nouns that mark their attempts at reclaiming a stolen past and merging this past together with a present reality. A sense of history has become paramount in the lives of individuals, and groups as a whole, in their quest for identity and meaning. However many of the male protagonists about whom we have read have become prisoners of the past -- unable to apply the lessons of history to the modern world. The development of pride and self-worth in the aftermath of colonialism, a structure which often stripped away such capacities, has led to their often-misguided attempts to define strength and power.

In Alan Duff's Once Were Warriors Jake "the Muss" Heke, who equates the Maori with physical prowess, embodies such strength, as is evident in repeated references to his huge hands, fighting skills, and ability to inspire fear in others. In many ways, Jake personifies the glorified Maori warrior culture of the past. However, his physical strength does not provide him with the skills necessary to survive in the modern world: the ability to care for his family, hold a job, or support himself in the present postcolonial era. Furthermore, Jake abuses his strength by beating his wife. 

In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, the character of Stevens the butler presents us with another example of misguided attempts to define strength. Stevens spends his life in the pursuit of greatness, which he defines as "dignity in keeping with his position" (33). Every day of Stevens' existence is geared toward the realization of this goal; as a result, he closes himself off to everything on the periphery of this single objective. Again, like Jake, Stevens' perception of strength turns out to be a weakness, as he realizes toward the end of the book that in pursuing greatness he has closed himself off from all human warmth. 

Anita Desai's In Custody presents yet a third example of a misguided protagonist. An unhappy college teacher, Deven is a pathetically hopeless and helpless figure whose only joy comes in the form of Urdu poetry. For Deven, strength lies not in physical prowess or a sense of dignity, but in a revival of the once-great Urdu culture -- a culture which embodies all that is good and beautiful in his life. Unfortunately, Deven fails to see Urdu poetry as anything but a museum piece; a construction of the past. Although the characters of Deven, Stevens, and Jake Heke define strength differently, all appear unable to adapt a glorified history to the reality of the present. Perhaps because Ishiguro's Stevens is located on the postimperial side of this literary genre, he does not experience the hardships suffered by Deven and Jake, nor is he a failure to the same extent that they become. Still, however, Stevens' isolation is just as complete. Like Deven and Jake, Stevens is an outsider. The isolation shared by all these characters comes from their own narrow-minded visions and stubborn refusal of anything that challenges their perceptions. 

The Acceptance of Women in "In Custody," "Once Were Warriors," and "The Remains of the Day"
Phoebe Koch, English 27, Brown University, 1997
In Custody, Once Were Warriors, and The Remains of the Day all argue that only by including women and accepting their strengths can the male protagonist achieve a true sense of strength and power. By excluding the other sex and stifling women's sexuality, characters such as Deven, Jake and Stevens have closed themselves off from the possibility of true enlightenment. Any hope for the improvement in the lives of these men necessitates the sacrifice of a false sense of security and limited definitions of strength. In order to realize the power of women, these men must abandon their feelings of superiority and dominance over the other sex: often the only source of power their lives. Deven, Stevens, and Jake all seem afraid of taking this step -- letting go their fears and opening up to the world around them. Such a release includes embracing the opposite sex and uncovering the strengths of their other halves. For Deven, such a move would involve facing "complexities with which he would not have known how to contend" (71). Deven's insecurity and unwillingness to risk his "grey anonymity" (71) is similar to the fears of Jake and Stevens. After living lives in pursuit of intangible goals, in denial of the present with all its positive and negative aspects, these men have closed themselves off from true happiness and self-actualization.

The positive results of overcoming ones fears and exposing one's self to female compassion are evident in a peculiar episode in In Custody. At one point during his initial visit with Nur, Deven experiences a feeling which stands out in Desai's book for its curious nature. When Deven has the opportunity to recite Nur's verse, his voice takes on a "tender, almost feminine lilt."(44) As he stands swaying by Nur's bedside,


...he began to be overcome by the curious sensation that he was his own mother, rocking back and forth on her heels as if she half-sang, half-recited a story in the night, and that the white bolster-like figure on the bed beside him was a child, his child, whom he was lulling to sleep. He understood completely, in these minutes, how it must feel to be a mother, a woman. He had not known before such intimacy, such intense closeness as existed in that dark and shaded room. (45)

Deven's ephemeral feelings of "closeness" and "intimacy" stand out in a narrative characterized by isolation. Through his connection with the female figure of his mother, Deven experiences a closeness normally so foreign to him. The pleasant sensations that overcome him as he recites Nur's verse, however, are accompanied by "the welling up of a drop of sadness that... trickled through him, moistly." For Deven is aware that "this moment that contained such perfection of feeling, unblemished and immaculate, could not last, must break and disperse" (45). Even in the few euphoric moments of Deven's existence, an inner voice constantly reminds Deven that the moment will be gone and he will be left in despair once again. He realizes he does not have the courage to face these feelings and make the move towards human connection.

In Once Were Warriors, it is only after Beth throws Jake out of the house that he begins to acknowledge his dependence on her. Perhaps this realization, coupled with his desperate homelessness and increasing isolation, leads to Jake's first personal connection in the story: his friendship with the fifteen-year-old Cody McClean. By accepting someone into his personal space Jake finds a renewed sense of peace, evident in his less-violent dreams. Sleeping with the boy in his arms, Jake woke up "amazed each time that his dreams were alright. Not mad violent" (182). Thus only by opening up to another can Jake abandon his preoccupation with hate, anger and violence.

The Presence and Absence of History in Ishiguro
[Randall Bass, English '91]
History plays a very subtle role in the structures of Ishiguro's novel, The Remains of the Day. At many levels the novel is very much about the repression and reclamation of history, both global and individual. For the butler, Stevens, the evaluation of his own personal history is inseparable from the evaluation of his master's role in the important events of global history. One might say that the presence and absence of history rely upon each other within the novel the same way that the individual and the societal rely upon each other within the story's development.
One critic of the novel points out that the famous statement by the critic Raymond Williams about the 19th-century realistic novel applies very well to The Remains of the Day: 

Neither element, neither the society nor the individual, is there as a priority. The society is not a background against which the personal relationships are studies, not the individuals merely illustrations of aspects of the way of life. Every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of the general life, yet the general life is seen at its most important in completely personal terms. (Williams, Partisan Review XXVI 200-213)
The forces and events of history are powerfully present in the novel, while at the same time being submerged within the unfolding of an individual's experience with them. The technique of suppressing powerful historical events behind the dramatic representation of an individual's personal feelings is characteristic of Ishiguro. As Susanne Wah Lee notes in a review, in all three of Ishiguro's novels, "a shattering social event looms as an unspoken backdrop that sharpens and defines the characters and defines the characters in the foreground. Each allows the readers to see the world that shapes its characters much more clearly than they can" (The Nation, 12/18/89).

Are there other novels in the English literary tradition that utilize this technique? How is Ishiguro's handling of personal and public history similar to a writer like Graham Swift in his novel Waterland?

The novel begins, and mostly takes place, in July 1956. What significance might this date have to the meaning and events in the novel?

The Remains of the Day and the Suez Canal Crisis
Carla Guttmann (English 34, 1991)
When the lease that the Compagnie Universelle de Suez established in 1854 expired, it symbolized the end of English imperialism and colonialism (Devries, History as Hot News 1865-1897.) In 1954 the Suez canal was returned to the Egyptian Government. Two years later, on July 26th 1956, the canal finally became nationalized and President Nasser named twelve new directors, primarily Egyptians, to the board of the Suez Canal Company (London Times, July 26th, 1956.) The law that enabled the nationalization to take place was a retatliation against the Western Powers' withdrawal of their offer to finance the Aswan High Dam. The Canal company's funds in Egypt were frozen and its property seized throughout the world. Hence, the Nationalization Law posed a threat to Western interests in the Canal company, in which Britain owned more than three-eighths of the shares. By putting Western investments at risk, President Nasser was, in a sense, making the British pay for the 120,000 Egyptians who died in forced labor while digging the Suez Canal in 1854. Just as the Egyptians realized the high price they paid due to colonialism, so too does Mr. Stevens confront the sacrifices that he has made by succumbing to the system of hierarchy within English tradition.
The following passage reveals the cracks and gaps of Stevens' previous idealistic beliefs about the nobility and the fundamental role that Lord Darlington played in his life.


How can one possibly be held to blame in any sense because, say, the passage of time has shown that Lord Darlington's efforts were misguided, even foolish? Throughout the years I have served him, it was he and he alone who weighed up evidence and judged it best to proceed in the way he did, while I simply confined myself, quite properly, to affairs within my own professional realm. And as far as I am concerned, I carried out my duties to the best of my abilities, indeed to a standard which many may consider "first rate". It is hardly my fault if his lordship's life and work have turned out today to look, at best, a sad waste-and it is quite illogical that I should feel any regret or shame on my own account (201).
In this passage Stevens admits to his employer's foolishness, and he also recognizes that by putting his own interests, indeed his whole existence, in the hands of Lord Darlington, he had made his life a waste. He believed that it was his duty to let his social betters make decisions for him because they had a greater ability to do so. By giving up any political responsibilty for his actions, Mr. Stevens does not define himself outside of his subordinate relation to Lord Darlington; he is himself colonized.

Engulfed by the system of hierarchy, Stevens believed that his sole responsibility was to "inhabit" the role of a butler, whose service he considered proper and above all, dignified. The concept of dignity ruled his life to such an extent that Stevens repressed all of his emotions. Any display of feeling he considered a sign of political disempowerment and weakness. Paradoxically, the very system of hierarchy that gives him a sense of self-worth also dehumanizes him. He has paid a heavy price to hegemony; he has denied his family, his sexuality, and his self.

Ishiguro shows us the political implications and human sacrifice, in what at first seems to be a harmless account of a butler's life. The inconsistencies of Mr. Stevens' theories about dignity, loyalty, and servitude reveal the emptiness of hierarchy and as a consequence, the emptiness of his life. Accordingly, when Stevens starts to deconstruct and question the ideals which previously formed the basis of his life, does the symbol of the Victorian era collapse. The awakening to the meaning of his life allows Stevens to receive some retribution for his suffering, although the traces of colonialism and imperialism can not, for Stevens nor for the Egyptians, be fully erased.

The Self and the Ideal of Service in Ishirguro's The Remains of the Day
Randall Bass PhD '91 (English)
In The Remains of the Day, the butler, Stevens, is portrayed as having a sense of "self" that is completely defined by his ideal of service -- that is, his entire is identity is bound up with serving his master. As one reviewer puts it, "Stevens has lived a repressed and stilted life in pursuit of an illusory goal and is left to reconcile himself to the truth that the man he served was hardly as honorable or noble as he believed" (The Nation, 12/18/89). Another critic says, 
As memories reverberate in Stevens's solitude, he is forced to look at the implications of his obedience, to face the truth about the employer he revered for not only his breeding but his virtue, and to realize that, along with his butlerine perfection, he has sold his soul. (The Servant, Rhoda Koenig, New York , October 16, 1989).
Stevens values his ability to "serve" and considers its virtue to lie in the totality of appropriation by the role. Stevens says at one point,


"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 their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit"
(42-43).
What are the costs of Stevens' ideals of service and self-sacrifice? Does a socio-economic system that depends on "servants" necessitate that a segment of the population be denied its sense of "self"? Is there a diametric opposition between self and service?

One critic has suggested that Stevens' relationship to his Lord/Master mimes that of a Colonizing power to its colonized subjects? How might Stevens' sense of service render him an ideal colonized subject?

A Butler's Quest for Dignity: "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
Richard Locke
In both its form and content this ventriloquistic novel-- a tragicomic monologue by an idealistic, not unheroic, though sadly self-deceived English butler in his sixties -- proceeds as if the realistic English novel of manners, like Britannia herself, still ruled the waves. In fact, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (Knopf, 245 pages, $18.95) is both an homage to traditional English forms and a dramatic critique of them. It implies that the British Empire was rooted in its subjects' minds, manners and morals, and argues, tacitly, that its self-destructive flaws were embodied in the defensive snobbery, willful blindness role-playing and especially the locutions of its domestic servants.
As the narrator Stevens, the solitary butler of Darlington Hall, mulls over such hallowed terms as "greatness," "dignity," "service" and "loyalty," we see how pious cant subverts the soul. Stevens's dutiful conflation of the public and private realms -- like his beloved master's -- destroys all it was designed to preserve. Such armor crushes the soldier. The mask cuts to the quick.

It's 1956, the year the Suez crisis marked the final end of Empire. As he stands on a hill at the beginning of a sixday motor expedition from Oxfordshire to Cornwall, where a former housekeeper resides, perhaps the victim of an unhappy 20-year marriage, perhaps (he hopes with more fervor than he will ever acknowledge) not disinclined to return to domestic service, Stevens surveys the view and thereby provides a self-portrait, a credo and the author's metaphor for the aesthetic of the novel we're reading:


"We call this land of ours Great Britain, and there may be those who believe this a somewhat immodest practice. Yet I would venture that the landscape of our country alone would justify the use of this lofty adjective.... It is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it. In comparison, the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness."
An effusive landscape? An ill-mannered mountain? But let Stevens continue in his unwitting comic manner (his conscious efforts at "banter" always fail -- most comically): "This whole question is very akin to the question that has caused much debate in our profession over the years: what is a 'great' butler?" His answer is one "possessed of a dignity in keeping with his position." Such dignity "has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits." He "will not be shaken out by external events. however surprising, alarming, or vexing . . . Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of."

Despite his racial advantage, to be a great butler is a heroic calling; one's pantry is "not unlike general's headquarters during a battle." If, for example, in the midst of a great social occasion (such as an international conference on revising the Versailles Treaty in 1923), one's 72-year old father, himself a great butler once, should happen to die of a stroke, one must continue to serve the port: "Please don't think me unduly improper in not ascending to see my father in his deceased condition just at this moment. You see, I know my father would have wished me io carrry on just now." It is this kind of dignity and restraint that allows Stevens to declare: "For all its sad associations, whenever I recall that evening today, I find I do so with a large sense of triumph." We note the imperial public word used to deny private rage and sorrow. That Stevens himself is not grotesque or repellent, but funny and sad and enlightening, is entirely the author's triumph.

Mr. Ishiguro's ability to create a fallible narrative voice that permits him to explore such intertwining domestic, cultural and political themes was abundantly clear in his previous novel, "An Artist of the Floating World," set in Japan after the war. Now shifting his scene from the country he left at five to the England he has lived in for nearly 30 years, he has fashioned a novel in the mode of Henry James and E.M. Forster. With great aplomb he considers not only filial devotion and (utterly repressed) sexual love, but British anti-Semitism, the gentry's impatience with democracy and support of Hitler, and the moral problematics of loyalty: "It is, in practice, simply not possible to adopt such a critical attitude towards an employer and at the same time provide good service.... 'This employer embodies all that I find noble and admirable. I will hereafter devote myself to serving him.' This is loyalty intelligently bestowed."

In the end, after meeting with the former housekeeper, Stevens sits by the seashore at dusk, thinking of her and of his employer, and declares "I trusted. I trusted in his lordship's wisdom.... I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really -- one has to ask oneself -- what dignity is there in that?" The loyal servant has come full circle. What is greatness? What is dignity? We understand such rueful wisdom must be retrospective: The owl of Minerva only spreads her wings at dusk. But as The Remains of the Day so eloquently demonstrates with quiet virtuosity, such wisdom can be movingly embodied in art.

Imitation and Deception in The Remains of the Day
Randall Bass, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University
In one scene in Ishiguro's novel, Mr. Faraday, the new owner of the house, is giving a tour to some houseguests, the Wakefields. At one point, Mrs. Wakefield lingers behind to ask Stevens, the narrator, a question about the authenticity of the house's ornamentation.

"I was crossing the hall under the impression that the party had gone out to explore the grounds--when I saw that Mrs. Wakefield had remained behind and was closely examining the stone arch that frames the doorway into the dining room. As I went past, muttering a quiet 'Excuse me, madam,' she turned and said:
'Oh, Stevens, perhaps you're the one to tell me. This arch here looks seventeenth century, but isn't it the case that it was built quite recently? Perhaps during Lord Darlington's time?'

'It is possible, madam.'

'It's very beautiful. But it is probably a kind of mock period piece done only a few years ago. Isn't that right?'

'I'm not sure, madam, but that is certainly possible.'

Then lowering her voice, Mrs. Wakefield had said: 'But tell me, Stevens, what was this Lord Darlington like? Presumably you must have worked for him.'

'I didn't, madam, no.'

'Oh, I thought you did. I wonder why I thought that.'

Mrs. Wakefield turned back to the arch and putting her hand to it, said: 'So we don't know for certain then. Still, it looks to me like it's mock. Very skilful, but mock."

In this passage, which comes at almost exactly the halfway point of the book, two significant things are being revealed to the reader: the idea of imitation (i.e. that things are not what they seem at Darlington Hall) and the problem of Stevens's denial that he ever worked for Lord Darlington. How are the two ideas connected? Is this conversation be a kind of turning point in the book?

Are there other places in the novel describing blatant acts of imitation or impersonation?

Roland Barthes and Ishiguro: The Butler as Myth
Randall Bass, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University
In Mythologies, Roland Barthes discusses myths, not as stories, but as "semiotic" systems. According to Barthes, myths are "acts of signification," and one of their chief characteristics is that they become very particular kinds of vehicles of meaning. Barthes says,

Myth deprives the object of which it speaks of all History. In it, history evaporates. It is a kind of ideal servant: it prepares all things, brings them, lays them out, the master arrives, it silently disappears: all that is left for one to do is to enjoy this beautiful object without wondering where it comes from....We can see all the disturbing things which this felicitous figure removes from sight: both determinism and freedom. Nothing is produced, nothing is chosen: all one has to do is to possess these new objects from which all soinling trace of origin or choice has been removed. This miraculous evaportaion of history is another form of a concept common to most bougeois myths: the irrespobsibility of man. (151)
In Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, how does the Butler, Stevens, serve as a kind of Barthesian "myth"? As an ideal servant, could it be said that Stevens becomes emptied of his original form? How is Stevens' subjectivity "possessed" by the systems of meaning that he serves? 

How is the underlying narrative tension in The Remains of the Day like the process of signification in the production of myth? Or, in other words, could you say that the novel is partially about the "privation of history"?

Self-Realization in the Characterization in Ishiguro
Jen Chapin '93 (English 34, 1991)
...people, and by extension societies, come to realize things about themselves." - Kazuo Ishiguro (from NYT Book Review cited in "Kazuo Ishiguro's Life and Works," by Randall Bass)
A pivotal and even shocking moment arrives in Remains of the Day when the butler Stevens come to realize the truth about his life in the following passage: 

Lord Darlington wasn't a bad man. He wasn't a bad man at all. And at least he had the privilege of being able to say at the end of his life that he made his own mistakes. His lordship was a courageous man. He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted his lordship's wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really -- one has to ask oneself -- what dignity is there in that? (Remains of the Day, p. 243.)
The shock derives from the directness of Stevens' confession to a complete stranger, an act completely out of the character of the ideal butler that he has constructed for himself. This contrast plays an effective part of Ishiguro's characterization of Stevens.

In reality, Stevens is peripheral, a fact that lies at the heart of the weaknesses to which he must confess. Like Omar in Rushdie's Shame, he has worn his peripheral status as a shield to protect them from the responsibilities of critical thinking and independent action. Stevens believes that his position as a servant to a "great gentleman" requires him to remain close to the hub of the wheel, but not to ask the sort of questions that would cause him to step out of his role and so take him from the periphery to active living. For Stevens, the confession is a brave and painful expression of self-knowledge that has been kept submerged for years. Like Omar, he must confess to "only-doing-my-job." When he says "one has to ask himself -- what dignity is there in that?" he finally rejects his constant justification of living not as a human being, but as solely a butler.

The crimes of Stevens and Omar are not in their actions -- however immoral some of Omar's may have been -- but in their inaction. Neither man involved himself in preventing or even worrying about the crimes that were committed by the so-called great men, but instead chose to remain in the periphery as silent witnesses to -- even recipients of -- the degradation of humanity.

Stevens as an Ideal Colonial Subject
Randall Bass, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University
The Remains of the Day is a novel about service and self-abnegation. Although the novel maintains the readers attention on the singular introspection of one man's career as an English butler, the novel nonetheless has wide reverberations as a political and social commentary. One way to interpret the book's excursion into the code of service and servitude is as an individualized model for the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. As one critic puts it, the "dynamic between the upper and lower classes, exemplified by Lord Darlington and his butler, duplicates very precisely England's relationship to its colonies. It is my contention that Stevens' private tragedy is precipitate by what Albert Memmi in his seminal study The Colonizer and the Colonized terms the cruel 'hoax' by which the colonizer or master ensures that the servant exists 'only as a function of the needs of the colonizer, i.e. be transformed into a pure colonized'"(MLS 3).
How does Stevens' perform as an ideal colonized subject? Or, as Roland Barthes would put it, how does Stevens become, himself, emptied of history and replaced with some kind of secondary signification?

How is the act of being a colonized subject revealed in specific manifestations in the novel? Through the negation of self through the act of service? Through the self-effacing entry into the discourse of the dominant other, such as in the scenes in which he attempts to banter with his new employer?

(Obtained from: http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/english/resource/ishiguro/ishiguro.htm)