Literary Devices in The Remains of the Day
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Stevens travels—road trip! Woo-hoo!—through southwest England in August 1956. His memories, though, revolve (and revolve and revolve and revolve) around the events that took place when he was a...
Narrator Point of View
The novel is told almost entirely from the perspective of Stevens, our main man. We say "almost" because the other key narrative in the novel is in Miss Kenton's letter. Her words often spark a mem...
Genre
Lord Darlington, Stevens, and Miss Kenton are all fictional characters, but they interact with the big deal historical figures of the day. Winston Churchill, Herr Ribbentrop, and Sir Oswald Mosleyâ...
Tone
As befits an English butler in the twilight of his career… oh, wait. We're starting to talk like Stevens. Ahem. Let's start over. Stevens is a stuffy old manservant. He's also pushing retirement...
Writing Style
To read The Remains of The Day is to be trapped inside Stevens's weird little head. And Stevens, with all his talk of perma-dignity and staying professional 24/7 (exhausting), talks to us in the ma...
What's Up With the Title?
The title, The Remains of the Day, sounds pretty cryptic at first. "Remains" is a word that implies stuff left over, residues. "Remains" is also another word for dead bodies, which: yeesh. In what...
What's Up With the Ending?
Oh, well Stevens and Miss Kenton end up admitting their love for one another and living happily ever after. Then they move to Tahiti.Ha. Hahahaha. That is not what happens at the end of this novel....
Tough-o-Meter
The trickiest thing about The Remains of the Day isn't Stevens's formal-to-a-fault language, and it's not figuring out the history behind the events of post-WWI England. It's reading between the li...
Plot Analysis
Stevens goes on a road trip to the West Country. This is pretty much Stevens's first vacation, and he only lets himself go with the thinly veiled excuse that it is for professional reasons: to see...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Stevens goes on a trip to the West Country. Because he's spent most of his life at Darlington Hall, Stevens sees the English countryside as a kind of wilderness. Initially Stevens is pretty thril...
Three-Act Plot Analysis
Stevens embarks on a road trip through the West Country, with a bunch of mishaps along the way.Stevens finally meets up with Miss Kenton in Cornwall. They leave on friendly terms… but she's stay...
Trivia
Ishiguro immigrated to England with his family when he was 6 years old. He was educated at the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia and became a British citizen in 1982. In early re...
Steaminess Rating
GNothing to see here, folks. One of the principle themes of the novel is sexual repression: the novel (and Mr. Stevens) blushes and runs for cover at the first hint of sex.
Allusions
Lord Daniels (2.182)John Maynard Keynes (2.182)H. G. Wells (2.182)Lloyd George (2.185)Herr Ribbentrop (4.20, 7.96)Winston Churchill (5.252-5)Anthony Eden (5.252-5)Lord Halifax (5.252-5)Sir Oswald M...