Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person/Central Narrator
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 memory or an image in Stevens's mind, sending him down yet another memory lane.
Since everything is told from Stevens's point of view, we take his version of the story with a grain of salt. Stevens himself is a stickler for the details, as any thoroughly dependable butler would be. He will correct his memories from time to time; for example, he remembers that Miss Kenton was crying behind her door not when her aunt passed away, but a few months later, when she announced her engagement.
It's as though he's admitting to an employer that he forgot whether the guests wanted roast or baked chicken, or admitting to a colleague that he forgot to inform them that a spare bedroom needed airing. Details, after all, were his life.
But we also wonder about his biases… like his loyalty toward Lord Darlington and his professionalism. Was Darlington a good guy, or an out-and-out Nazi?
As the story moves along, we know that he isn't open about his feelings, even to himself. So when, for example, he talks about feeling triumphant after a particularly difficult occasion at Darlington Hall—the conference of 1923—we find ourselves asking whether he really feels this way, or whether he's trying to convince himself that he does in order to avoid having to deal with painful feelings of loss over his father's death and Miss Kenton's marriage to another dude. Or, you know, working for a maybe, kind-of, sort-of Nazi.