Excavation of Hushed Voices: A Spatio-temporal Imaginary Discourse on Socio-ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Abstract

The concept of the ‘Great Chain of Being’, which influences the narrative style of the Renaissance Period of English Literature, depicts the hierarchical state of the old English Society. Suggestively, it’s a society driven by class/status and its attendant structures of inequality, discrimination and oppression. Hence, literary narratives of this period revolve round the travails of Kings and nobles, while subjecting the common men to the background. Subsequently, the esoteric state of the society, which was usually captured from the third person point of view, helps to question the place of truth in these literary narratives, as they could be liken to glossary reports from spectators, devoid of participant’ direct contribution(s). However, with the writing(s) of Kazuo Ishiguro, an Asian-British, there comes a direct feel of participant’s contribution in his narratives as he deconstructs the style of the old traditional English narratives in his novel, The Remains of the Day. Consequently, with the application of the first-person point of view in his novel, readers could explore the socio-cultural dispositions of every society and individual within the purview of ethics, politics and development. In furtherance, this study gives a historicized spatial alternate or temporal reality of an Old English society system - a system anchored on classism, professionalism and superficial orderliness devoid of ‘social interactions’ and freedom, especially for the workmen or common men. The emergence of an American Lord after the death of the English Lord gives a contrastive alternative pattern against that of the English. Hence, this alternate reflection of the American presence further deconstructs every long-held tradition in Darlington’s Hall as the author reveals that perceptions are influenced by cultural ingenuity which borders on the socio-cultural/socio-political formation of every society and individuals.