Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day is about the struggles one man, Mr. Stevens, has with relationships with his father, Miss Kenton and his employer, but the struggle he focuses on the most is to be a “great butler.” He pushes himself physically to work as hard as he can, as well as mentally to determine what makes a butler great. Stevens sacrifices all normal human encounters with those around him in order to be an emotionless person. “When one encounters them, one simply knows one is in the presence of greatness” (44). Stevens, through many trials, proves himself to be a “great butler.”
Stevens possesses “the emotional restraint which only the English race are capable of” (43). When his father takes ill during a major dinner party, Stevens remains calm and goes on with his duties. After Stevens’ father passes away he says to Miss Kenton, “please don’t think me unduly improper in not ascending to see my father in his deceased condition just at this moment. You see, I know my father would have wished me to carry on just now” (106). Stevens is capable of going about his work after his father has died, which takes much emotional restraint. Although the reader may see this action as heartless, it is clear that Stevens respected and looked up to his father, therefore was upset by his death. Stevens believes his “father was indeed the embodiment of dignity” (34), which is what Stevens is trying to become.
Stevens also is successful in hidi...
Holmes’s use of powerful emotions helps to convey his strong and patriotic attitude towards the ship Old Ironsides and America. His
...is interactions with his wife are filled with tension and he is saddened when he reflects upon the men lost during war and the death of his brother.
The struggle for Sarty is strong because of the great emphasis his father, Abner places on loyalty to one’s blood no matter the cost. Sarty might have been able to make his own choices of right and wrong, had it not been for the impact of his father’s words. His struggle becomes apparent because he doesn’t want to lie in court, but also feels strong loyalty to his father. He reminds himself that his father’s enemies are his own. “The smell and sense just a little fear because mostly of despair and grief, the old fierce pull of blood. He could not see the table where the Justice sat and before which his father and his father’s enemy (our enemy he thought in that despair: ourn! Mine and hisn both! He’s my father!) stood. (Faulkner 172) This demonstrates to the reader that Sarty wants
James Baldwin had a talent of being able to tell a personal story and relate it to world events. His analysis is a rare capability that one can only acquire over an extensive lifetime. James Baldwin not only has that ability, but also the ability to write as if he is conversing with the reader. One of his most famous essays, “Notes of a Native Son,” is about his father’s death. It includes the events that happened prior to and following his father’s death. Throughout this essay, he brings his audience into the time in which he wrote and explains what is going on by portraying the senses and emotions of not only himself, but as well as the people involved. This essay has a very personal feeling mixed with public views. Baldwin is able to take one small event or idea and shows its place within the “bigger picture.” Not only does he illustrate public experiences, but he will also give his own personal opinion about those events. Throughout “Notes of a Native Son” Baldwin uses the binary of life versus death to expand on the private versus public binary that he also creates. These two binaries show up several times together showing how much they relate to each other.
All three texts portray leading characters who suffer due to flaws within their own personalities; however, it could be argued that the flaws these individuals fall victim to are directly a product of their environments rather than being innate within themselves. These texts were written between 1623 and 1989 and depict figures from all levels of the social hierarchy; from a King in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale to a servant in Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and a socialite in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, showing that falling victim to a weakness within one’s own character is not an experience exclusive to one era or one class of people.
Truth is constantly sought out in Fountain and Tomb. Our young narrator is often like a detective, listening attentively to conversations, making keen observations of situations, and seeking out answers to questions he doesn’t know. “The day is lovely but redolent with mystery,” our narrator says, identifying all the unknowns in the world around him (Mahfouz, 15).
The Grateful Dead spread their message of peace love and mind expansion across the globe for the better part of three decades. Few believe that there has ever been a more influential band in modern history. But all of this didn't come without great strife. From the beginning there have been several ups and downs with the band and its various members, from personal problems, to lable issues, to the issues they have always had with being on tour for so long. Very few bands are able to keep the same sound to their
Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was not a man of weak stomach, but even his strength had restrictions. Although he was an individual of strict self-control, he did approve a known patience for others; an ability he had come by due to a singular resurfacing thread that seemed to wind it’s way through his life: he repeatedly had the luck (or misfortune, as one may see it) to be the last good influence in the lives of moribund men.
Kloss, Robert. "Balancing the Hurts and the Needs: I Stand Here Ironing." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. Vol. 15. Nos. 1-2 March 1994: 78-86. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz. Vol. 114. Detroit: Gale Research, 1990. 244-249.
...omes to admire and respect his father as he states, “What did I know of love’s lonely and austere offices” (13-14).
In his autobiography Night, Elie Wiesel shares his experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau with his father. Wiesel was one of the minorities of Jews to survive the Holocaust during World War II. Wiesel’s identity changed completely during his experiences in Auschwitz; he lost his faith in God and he became indifferent to his survival and the survival of his family members. How the Jews had faith in god, and then how much the people suffered and questioned him, and lost faith. Therefor its major, theme is how in times of inhuman the strongest faith can be challenged. As Eliezer stated, “ why did I pray? Why did I live? Why did I breath” (7)?
This leaves Stevens to function as one of the few servants left in Darlington Hall that still embody the traditional English identity. As scholar Ryan Trimm mentions, “The irony that, in moving from serving the English aristocrat and amateur diplomat Lord Darlington to being in the employ of the retired American Mr. Farraday, Stevens has in fact changed positions without leaving Darlington Hall” (Trimm 197). Stevens is now forced to perform all of the duties of the different service personnel in hopes that he can keep the dignity of the English butler alive. While Stevens is still the butler of Darlington Hall, he is also now the last remaining symbol of Englishness in a now American space. Stevens is no longer surrounded by the gentlemen of England or the staff members that he had control over. The lack of service personnel within Darlington Hall plays a major role in Stevens’ identity because it isolates him within a space that once represented his
... Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. 1166-86. Print.
The Declaration of Independence contains a snippet about the equality of men; a topic interesting to 18th century authors. The speakers in Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and in Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village” utilize the themes of death and isolation in order to represent the different social classes. Goldsmith’s speaker idealizes and mourns the decay of rural life, while Gray’s speaker equalizes the different classes. . This essay examines the difference between these two depictions and shows how Gray’s use of stylistic features creates a more convincing argument.
Literary masterpieces are a reflection of society that helps educate by using spiritual, intellectual, and political themes. According to Woolf (2014), “…masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice” (para. 12). This paper will explore the powerful literary masterpieces from different cultures where their lessons are still relevant today. The characters and their interactions make the story entertaining, while the lesson to be learned from the characters makes it a masterpiece. Societies come and go, but the lessons from these stories never change. The purpose of this paper is to define what a masterpiece is, how it reflects on society, the qualities it contains, and how they are still relevant today.