The Remains of the Day

Whether it is time, experiences, or happiness, many people have suffered with trying to balance all that life can offer. In the novel, The Remains of the Day, Stevens, the Head Butler, embodied the quality of sacrifice to the extreme. He was willing to sacrifice his personal life in order to perform his job to the best of his ability. Consequently, he struggled to find the balance between work and leisure. As the protagonist in this story, Stevens’ values contributed to the themes in which the story presents as well as gave the readers a tangible example of how these ethics could affect the outcome of ones’ choices. Since the beginning of the novel, Stevens’ often spoke of what made a great butler: dignity, respect, and work ethic. He felt as though it was his responsibility to follow in the footsteps of his father. He came from a family of distinguished butlers who worked in the same manner as he had. Stevens was never submerged into the domestic values that others depended on for stability. He was raised to always put work first and foremost before any other variable…

order to prove the humanity of clones. The students were given the privilege to participate in the normal rituals that adolescents take in the classrooms at schools to prove that they could interact and behave just as any other human. They were merely part of an experiment to test whether they had any humanity in them at all. This experiment caused them to be excluded from the outside society, witch caused several childish school rumors to circulate amongst the children about the dangers…

After receiving the tape during a “sale” at Hailsham, Kathy instantly grows attached to it and protective over it. She would spend hours alone listening to one particular song, titled “Never Let Me Go,’ that she treasures dearly: “The only place I could listen properly was our dorm…So that’s where I used to go, in the day when no one else was likely to be about, to lay my song over and over” (70). Music plays a powerful role in relation to human memory, and for Kathy, even after many years have…

to flee the country. The memory of Hailsham is such a joyful one that our normally passive protagonist uses exclamation points on three separate occasions. The happiness she finds in these memories keeps her from thinking of escaping. Even though she confesses finding Hailsham would be “impossible” she continues to seek it out, her hope of finding that ‘safe’ place of her childhood overshadowing more important issues. These ‘important’ issues, such as, escaping, or how donations truly work are…

As you read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, you must infer some parts of the novel as the narrator leaves out crucial information. Both the characters and the readers are withheld from, crucial information that greatly affects the events in the novel that shape who the characters are. The purpose for the author and the guardians to withhold information from the reader and the characters is to mask the true identities of the characters in the novel, to establish a sense of individuality within…

These characteristics include independent thought and freedom are restricted. The students were not allowed to associate with the outside world, reproduce or have a profession such as an actor, in the outside world. Students are perceived to be under constant surveillance. The guardians were watching to make sure the students didn’t escape into the woods. Miss Lucy declares “None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I…

cottages when they begin to understand their fate (in which the mood shifts and the 'golden age' becomes a more sinister part of their lives) and their lives in the recovery in which they are left to heal after confronting their fate. The mood of the novel seems to shift from ' the sun into the chilly shade', their "golden "childhoods, glorified in "sunshine" lead quickly into their dark, sinister fateful lives highlighting how ultimately, despite how bright and hopeful our lives may have been,…

Ishi lost two friends in an attempt to cross a stream, and his mother died from natural cases or cold. Ishi relates that he held her to keep her warm before she passed away. Other members of his tribe were hung, shot and in the Green Cave massacred. Throughout his life Ishi lost members of his tribe to white settlers. 2. What adjustments did Ishi need to make in order to live in a twentieth-century California city? Ishi wore modern clothes and learned to use silver ware, and worked at the…

condition of professional indifference- his father. Stevens narrate a story that has been explained by his father and before Stevens at the Darlington House, he was also a butler. This story which is “apparently true” describes about a butler who had moved to India with his master and worked there “for many years maintaining amongst the native staff the same high standards he had commanded in England”( The Remains of the Day, 37). While in India, under…

1. Introduction “The Remains of the Day” is a novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel was first published in Great Britain in the year 1989. The main character of the novel is an “aging butler” named Stevens, who is also the narrator of the novel. Johansson 2011, in his literary essay on Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, offers more details regarding the novel. According to Johansson, the novel is a representation of Stevens’ recollections from the days he spent working on Darlington…