“Past Regrets...Wishful Tomorrows” “...For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. 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 hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in 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 is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.” (Ishiguro, 244) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is a compelling tale of the model English butler who believes that he has served humanity by devoting his life to the service of a “great” man, Lord Darlington. It is that quest for Dignity and self-rule that entails him to challenge his own faith in the man that he served and the meaning of his own insular life. This tale (journey) is captured by the profound control of the language, which include the use of irony, allegory, and questions, all, clearly portrayed in the passage. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens (butler) begins a solitary motor trip through which he embarks on a harrowing journey through his own memory. It is on this journey, a motif which is used as a deceptive structural device, that Stevens begins to fir...
