“What dignity is there in that?”: The crisis of dignity in selected late‐twentieth‐century novels

Abstract

Summary This article offers an investigation of the concept of dignity and of some of the ways in which it has been represented in a number of late‐twentieth‐century novels. Discussions of dignity centre, on the one hand, upon qualities which the personality reveals in and of itself, and, on the other, upon ethical imperatives relating to how the individual should behave in relation to others. Debates about dignity thus open up questions of ontology, selfhood and the obligations of people towards one another. Two works in particular, in which the concept and status of dignity are explicitly and substantially addressed, are focused upon, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989) and Nadine Gordimer's July's People (1981). Significantly, both these texts explore the notion of dignity in relation to servitude. What the analysis reveals is that Ishiguro's and Gordimer's novels do not present dignity as an absolute good or as something which may be considered in isolation from the tensions, imperfections and imbalances of human society. Instead, it is shown to be affected by and implicated in the exercise of power, especially in relation to class and race.