The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Book Info
- Title: The Remains of the Day
- Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Year: 1989
- Genre: Literary Fiction | 258 pages | 4-5 hours
The Story in Brief
Stevens, an aging English butler, embarks on a six-day road trip through the English countryside in 1956. He’s driving to visit Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper at Darlington Hall, where he has served for decades. As Stevens travels, he reflects on his life of service under Lord Darlington.
Through flashbacks, we learn that Stevens dedicated his entire existence to being the perfect butler, suppressing all personal feelings and desires. During the 1920s and 1930s, Lord Darlington became involved in Nazi appeasement efforts, hosting secret political meetings at the estate. Stevens served these gatherings with unwavering loyalty, even dismissing two Jewish housemaids at his lordship’s request.
Miss Kenton, who worked alongside Stevens for twenty years, repeatedly tried to break through his emotional reserve. She challenged his decisions, sought his companionship, and eventually confessed her feelings for him. Stevens, bound by his professional code, never acknowledged the attraction between them. Miss Kenton eventually left to marry another man.
The road trip reveals Stevens’s growing awareness of what he sacrificed for his career. When he finally meets Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn), he hopes she might return to Darlington Hall. She reveals she’s mostly content with her marriage, though she sometimes wonders what might have been. Stevens realizes he’s spent his life serving a man whose political judgment was deeply flawed, and in doing so, he missed the chance for love and a life of his own.
The novel ends with Stevens sitting on a pier at dusk, talking with a stranger about learning to enjoy the “remains of the day” - what’s left of his life. He resolves to improve his “bantering” skills to please his new American employer, still unable to fully break free from his role.
Key Characters
- Stevens: The protagonist and narrator; a deeply repressed butler whose devotion to duty costs him everything personal
- Miss Kenton (Mrs. Benn): The former housekeeper; warm, direct, and emotionally honest, she represents the life Stevens could have had
- Lord Darlington: Stevens’s former employer; a nobleman whose misguided political sympathies lead to collaboration with Nazi sympathizers
- Mr. Farraday: Stevens’s new American employer; casual and friendly, highlighting the changing post-war social order
Main Themes
- The cost of emotional repression and duty taken to extremes
- The unreliable nature of memory and self-justification
- Lost opportunities and the pain of regret
- The death of the English class system and traditional social hierarchies
- Dignity versus authenticity in human relationships
Key Takeaways
Stevens’s story is a powerful meditation on the dangers of defining yourself entirely through work and duty. The novel shows how we construct narratives to justify our choices, even when those choices harm us. Most poignantly, it explores how fear of vulnerability can cause us to miss the most meaningful experiences life offers - particularly love and genuine human connection.
Why It Matters
Ishiguro’s masterpiece, which won the 1989 Booker Prize, is considered one of the greatest English novels of the 20th century. Its exploration of self-deception through unreliable narration influenced countless writers. The novel transcends its historical setting to ask universal questions: What makes a life well-lived? Can professional excellence compensate for personal emptiness? When Stevens finally glimpses what he’s lost, readers confront their own unacknowledged regrets. The book’s quiet tragedy resonates because most of us know someone - or fear we might become someone - who realizes too late that duty and dignity, pursued at the expense of genuine feeling, leave only the “remains” of a life unlived.