On 'The Remains of the Day'

The Remains of the Day, a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, explores the journey of an English butler named Stevens and his years serving different Lords at Darlington Hall. The books follow Stevens during a road trip to visit Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper with whom he once worked, and he revisits his past decisions, ideals, and unwavering loyalty to his employer. The novel, also the film adaptation with the same name, perfectly captures the nature of memory and regret, along with the other themes of duty and dignity, while making us think about our own missed opportunities.

Throughout the novel, Stevens equates dignity with complete self-restraint and tries so hard to live by that rule, to prove that he has done all of these —blind loyalty, hollowness of his lifelong ideal of dignity, sacrificing the chance to live his life— for a good reason. Stevens does not get to experience, or understand, intimate feelings because he doesn't allow himself to have them, his relationship with his father proves his emotional distance. So the unfulfilled connection with Miss Kenton is never given the chance to grow or fail. Instead, it remains frozen as preserved in the space of possibility, which ultimately makes it even more heartbreaking to remember.

The encounters that almost happen and the words that go unsaid carry a kind of haunting intensity that lingers far longer in our memories than fulfilled experiences. It might be a comforting thing to remember that by expressing our feelings or taking actions—even if they don't turn out perfectly—we at least have the certainty of having tried. We’re giving ourselves the chance to live without haunting us with the questions of ''what-ifs''. In Stevens’ case, his unspoken feelings for Miss Kenton are wrapped up in his strict adherence to duty, his belief in the importance of his role, and his reverence for what he thinks is dignity. However, in his eventual reunion with Miss Kenton, we finally see Stevens' realization of his repressed longing. Miss Kenton tells him, "But that doesn't mean to say, of course, there aren't occasions now and then - extremely desolate occasions - when you think to yourself: 'What a terrible mistake I've made with my life.' And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had. For instance, I get to thinking about a life I may have had with you, Mr Stevens. And I suppose that's when I get angry over some trivial little thing and leave. But each time I do so, I realize before long - my rightful place is with my husband. After all, there's no turning back the clock now. One can't be forever dwelling on what might have been. One should realize one has as good as most, perhaps better, and be grateful.''

Stevens admits that his "heart is breaking," after Miss Kenton's words, and it’s such a profound moment precisely because he gives no evidence of emotion throughout the novel. Miss Kenton’s confession of possible regret reveals to Stevens what he could have had if he’d chosen to pursue his own feelings, instead of his loyalty to Lord Darlington. Now he’s faced with the painful reality that his life could have been more fulfilling and he could've been more deeply human, and it's twice as hard to accept especially for a man who has spent his life believing that suppressing personal feelings was a path to true "greatness" as a butler. He's not even able to blame anyone, other than himself, because he couldn't even make his own mistakes to regret. In this moment, we see Stevens not as a perfect servant but as a sad, broken man who realizes, too late, the consequences of his emotional imprisonment.

The Remains of the Day remains a tragic novel that reminds us of the bittersweet feeling of longing for the unspoken. Something that never quite happens, nearly-confessed feelings, shared glances that hold but do not act. As they're re-playable in memory and imagination, they leave an endless range of imagined possibilities that could have been.