Misreading One's Place in Kazuo Ishiguro's the Remains of the Day (1989)

Kazuo Ishiguro‟s novel The Remains of the Day (1989) presents in its plot a series of misreadings, which are heavily influenced and conditioned by the English class system and the assumptions that it propagates. This thesis shows how those misreadings, although they may seem trivial at first, have a significant impact on the lives of the characters, and can serve as a tool to maintain the status quo of the class system. However, not all misreadings in the novel are class related, and the thesis analyses the causes, implications, and consequences of such misreadings as well. Ishiguro depicts two periods in the novel: the 1920s and 1930s are shown through the memories of the main character, while the present plot takes place after the Second World War, in 1956. The war in some ways forever changed the English society, and this thesis examines how Ishiguro presents the extent of those social changes. The themes of performance, failure, dignity, nostalgia, and regret, which are all prevalent in the novel, are also discussed throughout the thesis