The Butler Who Personified Dignity
Review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s "The Remains of the Day" (1989)
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1989) is a novel about dignity, duty, and the slow, creeping realisation that you may have lived the wrong life.
Set in post-World War II England, the book follows Stevens, an aging butler whose entire existence has been defined by professional servitude and emotional suppression.
But don’t expect grand revelations or sweeping drama. This is a quiet novel—painfully so—where regret settles like dust over every page.
You might find yourself simultaneously fascinated and heartbroken by a protagonist who's monumentally skilled at avoiding his own humanity.
Remains of the Day won the 1989 Booker Prize and has been widely acclaimed as a seminal work of late 20th-century literature. It was also adapted into an acclaimed film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, which further cemented its cultural significance.
Just a Road Trip?
The narrative follows Stevens on a road trip through the English countryside, ostensibly to visit a former colleague. But this journey is far more than a simple geographical movement—it's a profound psychological excavation.
As he drives, Stevens reflects on his decades of service at Darlington Hall, revealing layer upon layer of unexpressed longing and missed opportunities.
Stevens represents a dying breed of English servant—meticulously professional, pathologically dedicated to the concept of "dignity".
“It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of. Continentals - and by and large the Celts, as you will no doubt agree - are as a rule unable to control themselves in moments of a strong emotion, and are thus unable to maintain a professional demeanour other than in the least challenging of situations. If I may return to my earlier metaphor - you will excuse my putting it so coarsely - they are like a man who will, at the slightest provocation, tear off his suit and his shirt and run about screaming. In a word, "dignity" is beyond such persons. We English have an important advantage over foreigners in this respect and it is for this reason that when you think of a great butler, he is bound, almost by definition, to be an Englishman.”
His commitment to his role is so absolute that he's essentially erased his own emotional landscape.
When he recalls moments of potential personal connection, particularly with the housekeeper Miss Kenton, the restraint is so exquisite it becomes almost unbearably poignant.
“Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in - particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth.”
Where Ishiguro shines
The brilliance of Ishiguro’s prose lies in what is not said.
Stevens never declares his love, never openly regrets his choices. But his silences, his hesitations, the way he clings to trivialities—these betray him.
When he speaks of “dignity,” you realise he means repression.
“And let me now posit this: ‘dignity’ has to do crucially with a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits. Lesser butlers will abandon their professional being for the private one at the least provocation. For such persons, being a butler is like playing some pantomime role; a small push, a slight stumble, and the façade will drop off to reveal the actor underneath. The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of ‘dignity’.”
When he insists he has no regrets, you feel the weight of all the things he will never admit.
“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?”
The novel also masterfully critiques the idea of blind loyalty. Stevens dedicates his life to serving a man who turns out to be dangerously naive, even complicit in appeasing the Nazis.
“He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his lordship's wisdom. All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?”
But does Stevens allow himself to see this? Or is he so deeply conditioned to obey that he cannot afford to question?
“As far as I'm concerned, Miss Kenton, my vocation will not be fulfilled until I have done all I can to see his lordship through the great tasks he has set himself. The day his lordship's work is complete, the day he is able to rest on his laurels, content in the knowledge that he has done all anyone could ever reasonably ask of him, only on that day, Miss Kenton, will I be able to call myself, as you put it, a well-contented man.”
What might disappoint you
This is not a book for readers who need action. The entire plot is a man remembering things he refuses to admit.
If you struggle with restrained, internalised emotion, Stevens might frustrate you.
There are no confrontations, no passionate speeches, no dramatic love confessions—only a man quietly realising, too late, that he has wasted his life.
“The fact is, of course,’ I said after a while, ‘I gave my best to Lord Darlington. I gave him the very best I had to give, and now – well – I find I do not have a great deal more left to give.”
The Verdict: A Masterpiece of devastating subtlety
It's a novel that doesn't just tell a story—it performs surgery on the human heart, revealing the profound cost of emotional suppression with breathtaking precision.
The novel draws inspiration from the tradition of English realist literature, echoing writers like E.M. Forster in its nuanced exploration of class and repression. You'll detect traces of Henry James in the psychological complexity, and George Orwell's keen social observations.
The emotional terrain Ishiguro creates is simultaneously desolate and rich. You'll experience a profound melancholy, a sense of opportunities forever lost, of a life lived in service to an ideal that ultimately proves hollow.
It's a gut-punch of a novel that will leave you contemplating your own most profound fears about wasted potential, unacknowledged love, and unexamined compromises.
“What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”
Read Next:
If you want another Ishiguro novel about devotion, regret, and missed opportunities, try Never Let Me Go.
Sarah Waters's The Paying Guests and Ian McEwan's Atonement have similar themes of missed connections in a repressed British society with class rigidity.
If you’re drawn to quiet, introspective novels, John Williams's Stoner follows a man who lives a small, unremarkable life filled with unspoken sorrow.
In non-fiction, try David Kynaston's social histories like Austerity Britain or Claire Tomalin's biographical works that illuminate similar historical periods.