First-Person Fiction

In this story, we learn about Josh’s summer days on the beach as a lifeguard. We find out that he has huge self-esteem about his body and his role on the beach. He constantly has girls at his chair trying to get his attention and offering food to him. He loves it so much that this was supposed to be the best summer yet. He knew everyone on the beach and Ric was one of his good adult friends. Ric had a family of his own he would bring to the beach and was once a lifeguard too. Ric had a child die while he was on duty in his prime and he hasn’t let it go since. He talks to Josh about it every weekend and how he used to have all the girls too. He warns Josh to be lucky for what he has, being the king of the beach and having all these girls because it won’t last forever. Ric is foreshadowing this for Josh because he talks about how he misses being a lifeguard and that his job now sucks. Josh talked a lot about Mrs. Lovenheim and how he set up her umbrella every morning. It seems like he likes the fact that she is always watching him while he’s in his chair at work. He says that she never gets in the water but only watches him while reading her book. This makes Josh feel good about himself because not only did he have young girls he also had older women looking at him too. One day on the beach little Becky choked on a grape right when Josh was paying more attention to the girls around his chair. He was so caught up in everything else with a pure shock that he didn’t know what to do and poor Becky almost died. But Mrs. Lovenheim came to the rescue and saved the child, Josh wasn’t the same the rest of the day.

We find out that Josh has been missing something the whole time, true love. He finds this when he goes to Mrs. Lovenheim’s house to thank her for helping Becky that day. She hugs him and he feels something he has never felt before it filled the hole inside of him. She left him there alone and he never saw the beach the same again. Mrs. Lovenheim was superior to Josh. He thought that she liked him while she watched him on the beach but when she saw him that night, he was shocked that she didn’t even know him. We also see Josh change throughout the story, he went from thinking the beach was about being appreciated by girls to later remembering the real reason he is on the beach. Josh misunderstood why he was there on that beach. It wasn’t for people to appreciate his looks, what they appreciated was that he was a lifeguard that saves people. He realized that he couldn’t even do that his whole life changed. I feel like this story was a reflection about Josh and how he took for granted what he had at the moment. We should enjoy things like this when we have them because once we lose them, we will find ourselves thinking about what we missed out on later and regret not cherishing it. Ric was foreshadowing this for Josh in the story the whole time.

I found that the relation between the story’s title and the story itself to be a little ironic. This is because the narrator continuously makes poor decisions (drug/alcohol abuse, changing test scores, etc.) However, at the end, she quits her job at the school. Could this be a form of bettering herself? She says that she loves the kids, but I think that quitting the job was in her best interest. She needed to put a boundary between them and her and that is what she did. With that being said, perhaps the title isn’t as ironic as initially perceived. I felt as though she shared too much of her life with the kids.

This story is extremely different from those we have read before from Richard Ford. I think that the language used is an obvious observation. However, I felt that the sentence structure of the story seemed different as well. The narrator’s thoughts were usually concise and in a matter of fact kind of attitude. Despite this, they carried a lot of weight.

The relationships outside the narrator and her students was interesting as well. There was “the boyfriend” and the narrator’s ex-husband. I’m not sure why the ex-husband invited her to dinner. The narrator was definitely not welcoming his company, so I’m not sure why she went to the dinner either. It seemed like one of the more weirder situations that occurred in this story, especially considering the ex-husband had a wife back home. This just seemed like a boundary that was being overstepped.

As I think more on the narrator and her ex-husband, it gets stranger to me. Why did she get her nails and hair done prior to seeing him? What was she expecting from him? What was he expecting from her? Also, the narrator arrived to dinner way earlier than him. She had a few drinks. I’m not sure if this was out of habit or if she was preparing herself to see him. By that, I mean that she may have been drinking excessively in order to be able to deal with the presence of her ex-husband. She wasn’t happy at dinner and eventually left. Her ex-husband also offered her money to stop talking to him. Didn’t he ask her to dinner?

The ending of this story was abrupt to me. It was slightly confusing as well. She wasn’t able to give her resignation letter to the church and as a result, she ripped it up. Does this mean she decided to stay at the job?

All Aunt Hagar’s Children gives a brilliant portrayal of how a person’s past can majorly influence their mental health and understanding of the world around them. You can see this sort of subjective mental weight in our main character, a Korean war veteran who had just returned home from deployment.
We first see this character passed out drunk on a sidewalk in D.C after a long night at a bar. It is at this moment we learn about the main plot line. the returning man must search and find his cousin’s killer. In order to achieve this the narrator decides to take a journey to Alaska. It’s on this journey that we see how much the narrator’s own mental guilt affects his everyday life. You see him obsess multiple times over the words of a dying woman he didn’t save and the ending if his toxic past relationship. It seems his past experiences haunt him and he has found himself unable to properly deal with them. In essence, he can’t cope. He can’t move on from this guilt of leaving this white woman dead in the road or the guilt of his leaving his ex. He has so much unresolved trama he just can’t seem get rid of. You can see this struggle manifest in his frustration. His unwillingness to fully help find his cousin. His lack of perseverance to get to Alaska. All of these complex mental decisions and reactions can be tracked to his deteriorating mental health. Even in the end, the only answer to his frustrations we are given is his ex ghosting past him. He is so bogged down with his own frustrations and baggage that he forgot to include other people’s viewpoints. By doing this he completely disregarded his ex’s own feelings and made an assumption that his ex would miss him or be angry. He used a version of transference to displace his own emotions about himself onto her.
Our narrator is constantly ignoring other people’s emotions and focusing on his own. Through this he makes no progress towards coping or growing in his mindset. He sits, stuck in his emotions and allows this attitude to bleed into his feelings towards other people.

Edward P. Jones has a very interesting writing style. To me it feels as if he is able to find every perfect word and put them together to create something so engaging. However, I say this when I did not even enjoy this story, not until almost the end.

This story occurred in a span of a couple weeks, and followed the life of a young black man living in DC. His dream of running off to Alaska all to prevalent in his mind caused him to be quite melancholic during those two weeks. He had been asked by Miss Agatha to solve the case of her murdered son Ike who was shot in the head.

What made things much more interesting was that Edward P. Jones was leading the reader on the same hunt that the narrator is going on. Jones somehow manages to make us feel the whole “meh why am I doing this” mood that the narrator is carrying with him during his independent investigation. The lack of answers, clues, and actually caring about figuring out what happened to Ike was almost non-existent. However, something made the narrator keep going, and when he learned of Fish Eyes he was ready to throw in the towel and focus on Alaska, but he went back to Ike’s apartment one last time and found out the truth.

This goose chase of emotions that Jones put both the narrator and the reader through is only capable with experience and the understanding of how to write a good story.

“All Aunt Hagar’s Children” is about an alcoholic young black man in the 1950’s trying to solve the murder of his cousin, Ike while dealing with the aftermath of his service in the Korean War.  He takes on the case at the request of his family, even though it is the last thing he wants to do before setting off for Alaska. When he first starts investigating the case, he looks through the old apartment Ike was staying at and asking questions to the people that knew Ike. Throughout his entire investigation, he drinks and remembers the words of a lady that died in his arms in the street. He cannot figure out what they mean but he keeps repeating them like a mantra. At the end of the story, he finds out that Ike’s wife murdered him by shooting him in the head. At the same time, he learns from the wife of a work colleague the meaning of the words that the lady who died had said.

When looking up the name “Hagar” on the internet, one comes across the story of Hagar and her son Ishmael from the bible. Hagar and her son were cast away from Abraham and Sarah, the couple they were slaves to because Hagar’s son was picking on Sarah and Abraham’s son, Isaac. Hagar and Ishmael can be compared to the characters of Miss Agatha and Ike. Miss Agatha was attacked by a white man when she was a teenager. Together, she and her sisters beat up the white man and ran off. To flee the law, the entire family left their home and headed to Washington DC where they still remained at the time of this story. Ike is similar to Ishmael. When he was alive, he was not well-liked by anyone except for his mother. Even then, his mother felt guilty about bringing him into the world. He was violent and hurt the narrator along with many other people. Ike was “cast out” of society like Ishmael was cast out.

The title “All Aunt Hagar’s Children,” refers to the fact that African-Americans are the ones cast out by the law and society as a whole. Even if Miss Agatha and her family told the police what had happened, the police and the law would not believe them because of their skin color.

Throughout this story, the narrator seems fairly detached while still being hyperaware about certain things like smells and how people look.  This is especially the case with how he looks.  He also suffers from bulimia based on some of the behaviors he expresses, the main one being purging and avoidance of food, while also always seeing himself as overweight.  I feel like this influences many of his reactions, including how he reacts to both very fat and skinny people: it reminds him too much of what he thinks he is and what he wants – and can’t seem – to be.

This also plays into the narrator’s reaction when first meeting Terri.  At first he almost seems disgusted with what he sees, but as the date goes on that perspective seems to shift.  He doesn’t go through with what he was hoping for once he sees Terri on the bed, where he saw “something twinkle in her eyes.”  Terri is the first to call to call him handsome, something he was longing for in his quest to feel good about himself.  He’s almost enraptured by her by the end because of this.

One thing this narrator either refuses to or physically cannot see about himself is his own self worth and attractiveness.  Part of this is because of the bulimia, which turns mind against body, but it could also be because he was looking in all the wrong places.  Throughout it all, he seems to place so many societal standards on himself.  He comments on his girly hands and his acne scars, heavily implying that that isn’t what he should be.  He puts all this pressure on himself without understanding the full implications.  This, of course, plays into what the story is really focused on – his insecurities and bulimia – and what he thinks it’s about – the relationships with Terri and his uncle.

Moshfegh does an amazing job in shaping the narrator’s voice in “Malibu”. She creates a character that is so tangible and interesting and feels like a real person. At his core, this character is insecure; that is incredibly obvious. He hates the body that he’s living in. He suffers from bulimia and low self-esteem. He constantly complains about parts of himself he considers disgusting- even unlovable. He repeatedly tells readers he hates his acne, his weight, his rash, and his hands. These are the things he first brings up when he meets people; it’s at the forefront of his mind, he believes them to be the most noticeable things about himself. He asks points them out to Terri on the phone, the doctor he visits, and the prostitute he hires. The narrator is afraid that these imperfections ruin his chances at love.

But the curious thing about the narrator is that he is simultaneously insecure and over-confident. At the beginning of the story, he states that he is a handsome person. Later stating that he’s aware that he’s more attractive than Terri and that she should be grateful to have sex with him. He is completely judgemental of the people around him and in his life. His uncle, who supports him, especially. These conflicting traits- both self-hating and arrogant- make him so confusing and unlikeable. It’s astonishing that although he has such personal struggles he still finds the time and energy to critique others. Moshfegh creates a character that proves the point that bullies are the most insecure. The narrator wants complete acceptance of admiration of his flaws but is unwilling to do the same for others.

Also, side note. All of the men in Moshfeghs stories are awful and I’m having so much fun reading these.

In “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” the narrator starts off alone in his office thinking about the only women he has ever seen die. He states that he can’t keep her last words out of his head. He was in the military and had seen a lot of men die, but for some reason seeing a woman die hit a soft spot in him. Maybe because he was raised around so many women. Miss Agatha, his mother, and one other lady came by to ask him to help Miss Agatha find out who killed her son. The narrator wasn’t happy about helping at first because he wanted to move away to Alaska to find gold. He was wanting to escape something from his hometown, maybe it was his ex or the lady that had died in his arms. I think the narrator is wanting to take on this detective role in helping Miss Agatha because he wasn’t able to help the white women that he saw die. This was another chance for him to help someone hoping to succeed this time. He felt he had failed the white lady in letting her die and also possibly his ex that he keeps trying to stay away from. Finding the person that killed Miss Agatha’s son would give him and her relief of the place they were living. It also made him feel like he could be a hero and that she really trusted him, as she couldn’t trust the police. The narrator didn’t change much in the story, he just got more caught up in the detective role. We find out that even though this seems to be happening right now, that this is actually a story looking back in time. The narrator never goes to Alaska and doesn’t get much reassurance on Miss Agatha’s son. But he did have a soft spot for helping Miss Agatha.

When the main character is at Miss Minnie’s house, the woman explains that the night of Ike’s murder, she didn’t hear anything. But when Miss Agatha got home, she and Alona started screaming. This was one of the first clues to the murderer’s identity, but not one that the POV character was able to pick up on until later. Another was how Minnie talked about Ike. She claimed she didn’t really know him at all, but that she was friends with Alona, his sister. But her discomfort with talking about Ike, uncrossing and recrossing her legs again and again, suggests otherwise. The nail in her coffin is the bird, Billie, who jeers with sayings it obviously picked up from Miss Minnie having sex. Even the narrator, who has so little understanding of women, is able to pick up on it, and it seems reasonable to him later on that Mr. Hal would’ve killed Ike when he learned his wife was having an affair. Learning about Ike’s addiction to heroin made that main character suspect his dealer, Fish Eyes, who was already dead. But when he goes to inspect the apartment a second time, he finds all the blood that the remodeler— possibly Alona herself— painted over without cleaning. The little details about the blood under the paint and following the trail out the window were put together in a really interesting way, leading the reader on to piece it all together along with the main character. The writing conveys the dawning realization and sudden apprehension the narrator feels as he sees Alona watching him and imagines her shoving him off the fire escape to plummet to his death. Another murder. It makes one wonder what specifically set Alona off so she felt she had to kill her brother, and just how it’s tied to her mother’s suffering as a child. What would it do to Alona’s mind to have been raised on that story? Did she see murder as the only option to stop her brother? Was it planned? There are layers to Alona the reader never gets the chance to explore, just like with all the women in the story. The narrator just doesn’t understand them, despite how much he clearly longs to.

The narrator tells us this story about a murder mystery as it is fresh in his mind and he’s not very removed from it. If I had to guess, he’d only been finished with the actions for about a week before he decided to speak. Why? Who knows. It feels like the narrator has a weight to lift from his chest and talking about it is the only way to do so. It feels like he’s writing it out in order to burn it as a way to hide the evidence of what he’s learned in his impromptu investigation. Either that, or to explain to future generations who happen to stumble across the writing that what was done in self-defense.

The narrator needs to tell the story because he’s one of the two people who know the truth about the murder and he feels burdened with the knowledge. All he wants is a new life away from everyone in Alaska where he can recover from wartime trauma. In the end, he realizes that that’s not what he’s going to get, nor is it really what he needed. He really needed to see his ex walking down the street enjoying life and not noticing him in order for him to realize he’s the only one stuck firmly in the past. Ms. Agatha is moving on as best she can, and so is everyone around him. They just want closure, and in a way, despite what he might believe, he needed that kick from reality to show that he does too. He avoided a whole street for years because he was scared of getting hurt (not just the physical harm that comes from having lye thrown in one’s face). When he inevitably and accidentally faced his fear, he was freed. We’re now able to see why he was sparked to write the story. He wants to let go/confess/free himself of this new shackle that latched around him and telling is the first step in doing so. He’s not entirely free, but he’s taking steps in becoming so.

When reading Moshfegh’s the Weirdos, one must prepare for some pretty off-the-wall habits from the characters. Then throw all that prep out the window. 

The Weirdos gives a glance into the life of a woman who is in a relationship with a very strange man. On the very first page, things take a sharp turn when the woman is talking about their first date and her boyfriend mentions that light can be reflected to summon aliens using mirrored bowls of water. He holds her face towards the sun and starts crying, saying that he read a message from God in her left pupil.

She is not subtle about how unhappy she is with this life and she wishes more than once that either she or her boyfriend would die. Her boyfriend owns the apartment complex they live in (a run-down one, at that) and is one of those who believes that everything is a sign. The only thing the woman seems to find any solidarity with is not even human; it’s the ‘Egyptian crows’ that flock around the complex. I tried to look up the sort of bird described and came up with nothing. It’s hard to determine if they’re even real birds.

When talking to a couple moving into the complex from up north (wherever north even is for the story), she tells them in a moment of truthfulness that she was planning on leaving her boyfriend that night. The couple, specifically the woman, another sort of bohemian-life-style people, then gives her some surprisingly insightful advice. She tells the protagonist to picture everyone in her life, parents, siblings, friends, everyone that she can remember, and put them on one side and her boyfriend on the other. Then decide which side she likes better. She ends up not leaving. By the end of the story, the protagonist and her boyfriend’s life has become increasingly worse. Her boyfriend does meth and is more volatile in his moods, while the protagonist at one point goes up onto the roof and seems to consider shooting herself (though never directly implied). She wonders if her relationship with an unpredictable man she hates could actually be her happily ever after.

The narrator told this story because he had returned from war and while he was with his family had decided to go to Alaska to find gold and have a change in life. Before he could even decide when to go, Miss Agatha requested that he, far from a detective, find who killed her son, Ike. For majority of the piece, it seemed as though the narrator was thinking and without an audience — other than himself — to converse to over the events that occur. The piece brought about a sense of constantly seeking support from none other than himself, as if he was trying to understand what was going on and using himself as conversation as with the paragraph on page 20 regarding meeting his ex and what he should do if she confronted him or even attacked him, but in the end, she didn’t even notice him, which made him feel disappointed — though he wouldn’t say that outright. The story was about the past but there was a sense of immediacy in the story that made it feel as though everything happened moments or minutes ago. We learned in the beginning the perspective of the story, which is recent, and a little bit of information regarding some of the people around our narrator, narrator, and setting — Washington. I believe the narrator thought this story is about himself. I think he understood that this was something — the murderer specifically — he would find out by himself only and because he didn’t know about the other people entirely, gave him more space to see things more openly. He didn’t understand a lot of what was going on beyond what was told to him, which wasn’t fully revealed in the beginning as he needed it to be. He talked about his ex a lot and declared he didn’t want to be with her, but was actually hung up on her, which was where I truly feel he knew this story is about him because he, in my mind, would focus only on the short comings of the detective work had it mainly focused on other people and not him. Why would he bring his ex up, who had no play in the murder mystery, otherwise? It was his process of including all of this as he searched for the murderer — what happened to him, not what happened or could have happened to Ike, his mother, or anyone else beside himself.

The way the narrator presented the story is a bit of a revelation and self defense. I think revelation because it was about a murder mystery while also being a self defense because of the time and characters set in this story. They couldn’t rely on officers, only each other, and in the end, they couldn’t do that. It was almost as if it was his way of saying “this happened to me, but don’t you dare think I am what caused this all to happen.” I find his tone almost unsure, as if he questioned the reality of his situation — primarily at the end, that is. Throughout the piece, the narrator spoke in a tone that was almost waiting to see the end too because they’re ready to move to the next stage of life, yet it wasn’t quite rushed. It brought a lot of details in, not only facts, as seen with his ex. It was as though he was biding his time until he could escape. The narrator did change throughout the story. He became more invested toward the end; invested in his home town and the murder of Ike. Though he was tempted to lie and blame the crime on someone he knew little of, he still returned to that apartment one last time to check. Despite he thought it was a lost hope, he still went to Ike’s place to look one last time, and in the end he didn’t fulfil his dreams in Alaska. I think the narrator found these events life changing, which is why he relayed his story.

The book  Theremains of the day presents Stevens as a narrator who has little to no interest in having options about anything other than his job. This can make him boring to readers and can often lead to feelings of frustration while reading. While this might be annoying it was done purposefully on the author’s part. Stevens’s lack of interest in the world around him makes him a tragically frustrating character. He is given chances throughout the story to make changes to his life, and to be something other than his career but he constantly declines, this is the beauty of this novel. This disinterest cost him a life he could have had and by the end of the story he realizes this, and it is even more tragic because there is nothing, he can do to take back the lost years and the lost opportunities. Even more tragic is this missed opportunity is likely linked to traits instilled in him by his father.

When I was reading, I inferred this mindset towards life was in a large part due to his relationship with his father, particularly the admiration Stevens has for his father. His views on his father are similar to the way someone would view their childhood role model. When Stevens thinks of the ideal butler it not the typical heroes of the butler community, he sees as the best but his father. “I realize that if one looks at the matter objectively, one has to concede my father lacked various attributes one may normally expect in a great butler, but those same absent attributes , I would argue are every time those of a superficial and decorative order. ( Ishiguro,34.). He even goes as far as to defend his father against the standards he views as false by society as a whole. This respect of his father is in many ways humanizing for Stevens as it is the same admiration many young children show to their parents however this admiration comes with complications. Like his son, Stephen’s father is also painfully devoted to his job, to the point of putting personal obligations to his family aside. While we do not see direct interactions of Stevens being abandoned as a child because of work or anything that would suggest his father is neglectful we do see a cold outlook between the two of them. This is seen mostly in the fact Stevens through the novel refers to his father as “father “regardless of the context. Giving the impression of a very formal relationship between the two of them. This cold formal relationship between the two of them is especially apparent when Stevens goes to talk to his father about his new limited responsibilities within the house. Stevens has difficultly figuring out how and where he is going to talk to his father saying.

“My difficulty was further compounded by the fact that for some years my father and I had tended- for some reason I have never really fathomed to converse less and less..In the end, I judged the best option to be talk in the privacy of his room, thus giving him the opportunity the ponder his new situation.” ( Ishiguro 63-64).

His worries about his father’s reaction to this new position is a natural worry. As well this it is natural he does not want to have a difficult conversation with his father, as no one wants to have difficult conversations with their parents as it sometimes it will result in a dispute between someone you believe love and who cares for you. What makes Stevens’s reaction different is he does not know how to talk to his father and based on the relationship featured within the book has not know how-to for a while or he ever truly did. Stevens said he does not know what caused the decline in his relationship with his father but it quickly becomes apparent as he enters the room it most likely is based on their shared unwavering devotion to their work. What struck me as a reader when I first read this was the abruptness of the conversion. Stevens tries to have a joking conversation about his father about him being up early but instead, Steven feels discomfort in his father’s presence as he “ looked me up and down rather coldly.” (Ishiguro, 64.)It appears like Steven’s father does not have the time for him or does not understand the friendly nature of the comment. Their personal conversation lasts all of two lines before transitioning to work and the matter at hand.  This scene is interesting because it shows Steven‘s father struggling with a social cue his son also struggles with, suggesting it might be a learned trait. Both father and son use work as a crutch to avoid talking about their feelings or opinions on a matter, or if they do not know how to handle a social situation in general. We see this same aversion to social situations in Stevens’s many conversations with Miss. Kenton. Because he lacks the skills or mindset necessary to carry himself in a conversation he losses countless chances with Miss. Kenton and because of this a possible future outside of being a butler.

However, this work standard of work before everything else is so ingrained Steven holds onto it despite his father’s obvious regert on his death bed. Regardless of whether Stepehen acknowledges it at first, we as readers can see the pain in his father tone as he says

“ I hope I’ve been a good father to you…I’m proud of you. A good son.I hope I’ve been a good father to you. I suppose I haven’t.” (Ishiguro 99.)

This is one most personal moments Steven has with his father throughout the text, and because of this it one of the most tragic moments in the novel. At this moment as previously mentioned we see regert for the way he was not the best father he could have been to his son, only grappling with this fact when it is far too late. This is only worsened as Steven’s mind is not on the conversation despite the fact his normally distant father is being personal with him, instead, his mind is on work.  It is heartbreaking as we see his father showing regert over the way he raised his son, and clinging to the fact he did not ruin him like he ruined himself. In the end, work wins out as the same work ethic that keeps them from a close relationship draws Steven back to work. Leaving his father to grapple with the fact his son is the same as him. The conversation is particularly tragic as it the last conversation they will have before his death and Steven could not fully appreciate it as his mind was on work.

Overall while I do believe Steven’s nature is in many ways his own making I feel his father is the primary reason for why he is like he is. Steven saw his father as a role model for his work due to his commitment to work and we see Steven share the same commitment regardless of the cost. This of course causes Stephen to miss out on countless opportunities and however he differs from his father in one key way, he realizes it before it is too late. While it is too late to take back his lifetime of years wasted away at his job, Stevens is not dead. Unlike his father is given the chance of not realizing it on his death bed and because of this has the chance of making something of the remaining years of his life.

The best way that I could describe this short story is with one word: bitter. But, to expand on that, it’s a monotonous bitterness. There’s this repetitious element to it that the narrator, Miss Mooney, seems absolutely disgusted with. The irony of the title I doubt was lost on anyone, she was (is) an alcoholic who drowned most of her days away with these routines that hardly even appear to get her through the days. The closest that she came to breaking that cycle was the possibility of turning in a letter of resignation. Actually, that’s a kind way to put it, she really was just throwing in the towel. Being professional was never really in her repertoire from what the story showed the readers, she would show up drunk/hungover to work, and then she would have a drink for lunch to essentially get her through the day so that she could go home to drink some more. Sometimes she’d spice it up with a boyfriend that she didn’t care for, drunken calls to her ex husband, or coke. She’s numb to it all, apathetic may be a better word to describe it though, and it didn’t even really seem like she cared enough to want to change the downward slope that her life was going towards.

For the church to be locked, it just felt like one of the final nails in the coffin, and it was unsurprising to read that she’d torn up the letter at the end of the story. I’m not sure if she really had a point to writing/narrating her depressing story, because I don’t think that she sees much of a rhyme or a reason to it either. Maybe a small part of her was hoping to break out of it, hence the letter and maybe even the calls to her ex husband, because otherwise there is sort of this question about what happens next in her life. Will she get even worse? Will she end up OD’ing? There are signs of depression, so hopefully it wouldn’t get that bad, but then again there is the narrator’s apathy towards life, people, and herself. It was just a strange read overall, frankly.

The Remains of the Day follows along in the life of Stevens, a butler who prides himself in having dignity. It is interesting how many variations of dignity Ishiguro managed to include within the story itself from different people of class. There were even disagreements between the butlers themselves on what it meant to have the dignity necessary to work as a butler within an esteemed household. The majority of the discussions between characters and the topic of dignity seem to offer Stevens something new every time, a chance to see his acquaintances views and possibly change his, but this sadly does not happen. Stevens views dignity in the light of ones proper role. “that I did not appear in anything less than my full and proper role” (169). He often explains it as if one would remove their clothing in public. The proper role is the clothing one must wear at all times to be of utmost professionalism until they are alone. When Stevens describes his definition of dignity as “rather hard thing to explain in a few words sir, but I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothes in public” (10), he is alluding to the need of being proper to have an ounce of dignity.

This is where Stevens is takes things to the extreme, and it is only just at the end of this story when he realizes that he never was his own human being. His drive to be, in a sense, the perfect butler for both Lord Darlington and Mr. Farraday, has left him much with an avoidance of voicing his opinions in fear of not being proper. This is very apparent with his relationship with Lord Darlington. Stevens overlooks the details that make Lord Darlington a rather uncouth person because he had decided years ago to give his full devoted service to an employer in which he believed in. So much so, that Stevens fires two Jewish housekeepers, or explains the birds and the bees to Darlington’s own godson. Both very different situations but both show the scope of distressing and confusing things Darlington took place in. It is not to say that Stevens was in the wrong. Darlington had many occasions in which good did take place, but it makes me think, was that good only for his own benefits? One will never be able to really know.

Ishiguro did an outstanding job in writing this book. There is something interesting in reading the life of a butler behind closed doors. His relationships, his thoughts, his goals, all wrapped up into one place. To me, the word “dignity” was a driving factor throughout this story. It was easy to link back everything Stevens did in his determination to have dignity, but the real truth is, he already had it. When I think of the word dignity, I think of it as having self-respect and being deserving of respect from others. Stevens is a very interesting character to have spent the 245 pages getting to know.

This story follows the narrator, a butler by the name of Stevens, who travels to visit a friend while reflecting on his time working in Darlington Hall.  He talks about and reflects on experiences within the hall, interactions with various people within it, as well as contemplating the idea of what makes a “great” butler.

On major theme throughout the story was the dedication Stevens had towards his work, though it could be considered a lifestyle, as well, due to how invested he is on a larger scale.  He holds himself to a much higher level than most and tends to shove everything that’s not considered work to the wayside, either to deal with later or not at all.  This especially became prominent when Stevens’s father passed away to a stroke while Stevens was busy severing several guests.  Instead of requesting a few minutes to visit his father and mourn, he pushed it all aside and continued to work and wasn’t present when he finally passed.

Another example would be Stevens’s reaction to the request to remove two housekeepers from the staff due to the fact they were of Jewish background.  He morally knew the decision was wrong, as did Miss Kenton, who was in charge of housekeeping and explained how hard and efficient employees they were, but still went about firing them.  In the end, when their employer realized his mistake several months later, it was to late and the two housekeepers had moved on to other jobs.  However, the main factor in this is how Stevens didn’t think to question his employer and the moral part of the decision since he was trained to follow orders and maintain the upkeep of the estate.

Throughout Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel,  The Remains of the Day, he uses the main character’s point of view to show how past events have affected him. The language Stevens’ uses, what he talks about, and most importantly, what he doesn’t talk about leads readers to understand his character more in-depth. In addition, everything Stevens experiences is told through the lens of his job. He only lets himself think in terms of his work and he considers his dedication to it to be his most redeeming quality, although it is clear to readers that this mindset is holding him back.

The death of Stevens’ father is one of the first events that shows the reader how emotionally unavailable Stevens is. He completely and totally denies his father’s decline in health; he denied it then and continues to deny it to this day. Never at this point in the book does he even mention how he feels or reacts to anything; everything is very matter-of-fact. It takes Miss Kenton forcing him to take notice and the request of his employer before he changes his father’s duties. That change is addressed with no emotion, but simply a statement of the facts. We see these same characteristics reflected in Stevens’ father. As his father nears what is obviously the end of his life Stevens is no longer able to talk to him.

My difficulty was further compounded by the fact that for some years my father and I had tended- for some reason I have never really fathomed-  to converse less and less. So much so that after his arrival at Darlington Hall, even the brief exchanges necessary to communicate information relating to work took place in an atmosphere of mutual embarassment

The only emotion Stevens is willing to express to his readers about his father- even after he had a stroke- is embarrassment. Throughout the book, he only ever speaks about emotions relating to his job performance, or the job performance of those around him, even when speaking about the death of his father. When his father says his lasts words to Stevens, Stevens doesn’t tell readers what he’s thinking. When his father dies, it takes another character pointing out that Stevens is crying for readers to know. He finishes that entry by saying:

For all its sad associations, when I recall that eventing today, I find I do so with a large amount of triumph.

Stevens doesn’t recognize that day for what it actually was and through his telling of it readers understand that he only feels a sense of worth and accomplishment through his job. Additionally that he places his job above all else, believing it’s what his father wanted; despite his attempts at the end of his life to change his and his son’s relationship.