First-Person Fiction

After being assured that Stevens, the narrator, was in fact in love with Miss Kenton, I now understand the book a little better. As I stated in my other post regarding the novel, I had thought he loved Miss Kenton, which would explain his obsession over her and why the memories he spoke about usually had her in them. Throughout the book, there are many moments between the two that appear to move along smoothly, but at some point there is a painful rupture between them — for example, when they were told to fire the two Jewish maids. Yet during these times — more or less the times they are not at odds with one another — there is a sense of playful, harmless teasing that mimics the behavior of two lovers. One example is the way he teases her over her threat of leaving; you wouldn’t expect him to do such a thing, and yet he keeps it up for so long. They even have select times to meet and wrap up the day, which, in a way, sounds like a date–cocoa and chats. In the end, I am starting to think that maybe his little breakdown at the end of the novel is about Miss Kenton’s decision to not return to Darlington but to stay with her husband.