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Lecture 22 from ENGL 210
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Lecture 22 from ENGL 210
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Topic 22: The Remains of The DayMarch 24th - 31st
Pre-Reading Notes
I realized quite early on that Stevens had the traits of a pretty unreliable narrator.
● Stevens is presenting things as objective when they’re actually subjective to himself –
there’s a lot of very definite sentences that imply that the narrator is completely objective
(you might sometimes forget that this is a first-person narration, not a third-person)
○ “Mr Farraday did not seem to understand this statement, for he merely went on: ‘I
mean it, Stevens. It’s wrong that a man can’t get to see around his own country.’”
● Stevens is really into Miss Kenton but cannot deal with it – is “Miss Kenton’s desire to
rejoin the staff” actually his desire for her to rejoin the staff?
○ Stevens is absolutely socially inept? He’s really uncomfortable with Mr Farraday
at the beginning of the novel (a person that treats him like an actual human, rather
than a robotic servant…)
■ Farraday reminds me very much of Gatsby and “new money?” He kind of
reminds me of the American tourists in Europe after WWI, where a lot of
them went to France and partied because the American dollar was
decidedly worth a lot more.
○ Views Farraday’s banter as “bait?”
Background
Launched Ishiguro’s career as a writer.
● Interesting background: born in Japan and then moved to the UK.
○ A very British novelist – yet, despite his being in the UK culture, he has a
somewhat distanced and “outsider” perspective on things, from which he can
comment on the larger culture.
● Ishiguro was struggling with his Japanese genetic heritage in his first couple of novels.
○ Stevens has been cited by many critics as an unreliable narrator. Why?
Stevens
Professionalism as the most important “virtue” for him – his adherence to professionalism
authorizes a lot of other bizarre behavior.
Historical Background
Lord Darlington’s attraction to fascism: Ishiguro makes his novel ethically complex as we
consider how Darlington is drawn into this fascist world by naivety and his good values.
● He sees supposedly good values in fascism: honour, honesty, etc.
Value system that underlies his world: how is this amenable to fascism and how Stevens both
identifies with that and later becomes ashamed of it?
● Is Stevens a quasi-collaborator with fascism as he supports Darlington?
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