Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day(1989)

from shining my lamp on to my shoes and trun-ups for fear of further

disappointment"(163). In another example , Stevens has the opportunity to comfort
Miss Kenton after a death in her family, just as she has sought to comfort hom on
the death of his father. Kenton loss an aunt who is, "to all intents and purposes,
like a mother to her" (176). However, rather than offering Kenton his
"condolences", as he at first intends, Stevens excuses himself from such activity
for fear of intruding "upon her private grief." The belief that she may have been
"crying" provokes "a strange feeling to rise within" him, and he is reduced to
standing "there hovering in the corridor"(176-7). And when he later catches up with
her, he can only engage her in a "little professional discussion" during which he
upbraids her for being "complacent" as regards some new employees under her
charge(177-8).
Ishiguro has Stevens unwittingly and obliquely refer to the unconscious,
painful issues that his conscious mind will not let itself address. Comments such
as "I had become blind to the obvious" (5) and "I could gain little idea of what
was around me"(117) abound, as do various visual metaphors for Stevens's lack of
self- and world-engagement. The numerous references to "a mist rolling across" his
path (160), "a mist" staring "to set in," a "mist" "thickening" and "encroaching,"
a "Great expanse of fog" (151-2) decribes not only local meteorological conditions
but Stevens's self-censoring, self-deceptive psychological orientation. In another
example, his perceptions from the vantage point of old age sum up a melancholy life
lived in isolation: it "was not a happy feeling to be up there on a lonely hill,
looking over a gate at the lights coming on in a distant village, the daylight all
but faded, and the mist growing ever thicker"(162). What the protagonist of
Ishiguro's short story "Getting poisoned" says at one point applies equally well to
Stevens's psychological predicament:"I don't want to think about things too
much."27
More significantly, Stevens's sexual and political repression is figured on
nearly every page of the novel. Near the beginning he is embarrassed by the way the
new American owner of Darlington Hall, Mr Farraday, refers to Miss Kenton as his
"lady-friend" and jokes about Stevens's sex-life(14-15). Throughout, Stevens never
addresses Kenton other than by her family name, despite their "close working
relationship"(234) for nearly fifteen years. To be fair, Stevens's sexual
inhibitions reflect those of the culture at large. This is apparent when Sir David
Cardinal asks Lord Darlington, who then asks Stevens, to explain "the facts of
life... birds,bees"(82) to his 23-year-old son Reginald Cardinal before he is to be
married ("Sie David has been attemping to tell his son the facts of life for the
last five years" [82]). Unsurprisingly, Stevens is only too happy to escape this
responsibility when "professional" obligations prevent him from carring it out
(85,90).

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