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

he has done all anyone could ever reasonably ask him, only on that day... will I
able to call myself... a well-contented man.(173)

Surprisingly, Stevens's identification with his employer reaches its culminating

point after Lord Darlington's death, when Stevens allows others to take him for a
gentleman rather than the servent of a gentleman (184-8). Reginald Cardinal at a
point tells Stevens that Darlington has "been like a second father to me"(221), yet
it is even more truly the case for the butler to whom he speaks.
Having observed Stevens's amatory and political disengagement, it remains to
discover the means by which the butler attemps to clothe this disengagement- to
cover it up or justify it to himself and to his audience - beneath his
"professional suit." In an interview Ishiguro commented of The Remains of the Day,
"It seemed to me appropriate to have somebody who wants to be this perfect butler
because that seems to be a powerful metaphor for someone who is trying to actually
erase the emotional part of him that may be dangerous and that could really hurt
him in his professional area. "31 This remark is misleading. Rather that viewing
Stevens's emotional life as a threat to his profressional life, it is far more
convincing to view his obsession with "professional dignity" as an excuse to remain
sexually and politically disengaged; and the obsession with "professional suit" as
an emblem of his desire to keep this repression under wraps. Stevens sublimates his
sexual and political instincts by directing them to higher and consequently
unobjectionable purpose: his professional life. Hence, it is no coincidence that
Stevens likens one who cannot "maintain a professional demeanour" to "a man who
will, at the slightest provocation, tear off his suit and shirt and run about
screaming" (43). Cynthia F.Wong writes that "Stevens's motor trip" is a "journey
reflecting on his repressed love for Miss Kenton ... which had resulted from his
loyalty to Lord Darlington"32. Rather ,Stevens's "professionalism" is best
understood as a mean of defending himself against "the messiness of life :
sex,marriage,personal interests";33 it is the "wall" he "labour to construct"
against "his regrets,"34 and not the other way around.35
There is much evidence of Stevens "clothing" his sexual disengagement beneath
his professional costume - his "professional viewpoint"(48), "professional matters"
(165), or "professional ambition" (115). It is clear that he views romantic
encounters with their anarchic, emotionally intimate, informal natures- during
which clothing, after all, is often removed- to be a grave threat to the
"professional order" of the house. Nothing saddens him more, he admits , than his
memory of a housekeeper and an under-butler on his staff deciding "to marry one
another and leave the profession": " I have always found such liasions a serious
threat to the order in a house." In particular,

167