English philology faculty the department of linguistics and english literature

CONCLUSION

The Remains of the Day is told in the first-person narration of an English butler named Stevens. In July 1956, Stevens decides to take a six- day road trip to the West Country of England—a region to the west of Darlington Hall, the house in which Stevens resides and has worked as a butler for thirty-four years. Though the house was previously owned by the now-deceased Lord Darlington, by 1956, it has come under the ownership of Mr. Farraday, an American gentleman. Stevens likes Mr. Farraday, but fails to interact well with him socially: Stevens is a circumspect, serious person and is not comfortable joking around in the manner Mr. Farraday prefers. Stevens terms this skill of casual conversation "bantering"; several times throughout the novel Stevens proclaims his desire to improve his bantering skill so that he can better please his current employer.

The purpose of Stevens's road trip is to visit Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper of Darlington Hall who left twenty years earlier to get married. Stevens has received a letter from Miss Kenton, and believes that her letter hints that her marriage is failing and that she might like to return to her post as housekeeper. Ever since World War II has ended, it has been difficult to find enough people to staff large manor houses such as Darlington Hall.
Much of the narrative is comprised of Stevens's memories of his work as a butler during and just after World War II. He describes the large, elaborate dinner parties and elegant, prominent personages who come to dine and stay at Darlington Hall in those times. It is gradually revealed—largely through other characters' interactions with Stevens, rather than his own admissions—that Lord Darlington, due to his mistaken impression of the German agenda prior to World War II, sympathized with the Nazis. Darlington even arranged and hosted dinner parties between the German and British heads of state to help both sides come to a peaceful understanding. Stevens always maintains that Lord Darlington was a perfect gentleman, and that it is a shame his reputation has been soiled simply because he misunderstood the Nazis' true aims.


REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/
https://www.britannica.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/
https://www.amazon.com/
https://thebookerprizes.com/
https://archive.nytimes.com/
https://www.sparknotes.com/

1. 
   "The Remains of the Day". Kirkus Reviews. 15 September 1989. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
   
2. 
   "Songs for English reserve in The Remains of the Day", This is London
   
3. 
   "Kazuo Ishiguro, a Nobel laureate for these muddled times". The Economist. 5 October 2017.