Remains of the Day

The Anticlimactic Adventure

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, Ishiguro uses time manipulation through embedding flashbacks and a time jump at the end. The author successfully shows how achieving greatness in one’s profession requires greater self-sacrifice through stories about his father’s greatness and his relationship with Miss Kenton.

Ishiguro manipulates time through the use of a flashback to stories of his father’s greatness to show Mr. Stevens’ definition of greatness in relation to self-sacrifice. Mr. Stevens believes greatness requires dignity. As he starts his journey in Salisbury, Mr. Stevens reflects on stories his dad told him of his own dignity – specifically his restraint – in the presence and under the command of the General responsible for his son’s death in South Africa. He remains professional; he even receives a tip at the end of the General’s stay. Mr. Stevens believes his dad achieved greatness as a butler by sacrificing his attempt at confrontation. Mr. Stevens parallels his father’s restraint in the flashback to the Conference of 1923 where he sacrifices his chance to grieve by continuing to serve the attending gentlemen. One man asks if Mr. Stevens had cried but Mr. Stevens says no and continues working after the news of his father’s death from Miss Kenton. These flashbacks during Mr. Stevens’ six day journey shows how he created his definition of greatness – how dignity exists in self-sacrifice. Flashbacks establish the nostalgia in the novel as Mr. Stevens lives by comparing his present-day (as he nears his end) to the days he considered the prime, glorified time of his life.

Ishiguro uses a time jump from the fourth to sixth day of Mr. Stevens’ journey to show how, through his aim for greatness, he had to sacrifice love. Mr. Stevens organized the trip to re-recruit Miss. Kenton, a prior staff member. On the fourth day he arrived in her hometown, Little Compton, Cornwall, and skips to the sixth day, employing flashbacks to...