Kazuo Ishiguro and Charles Dickens - Book Report/Review Example

Examine the ways in which Kazuo Ishiguro and Charles Dickens use the first person narrative to present Stevens and Pips acquisition of self knowledge in Remains of the Day and Great Expectations. Ishiguro's main protagonist, Stevens, in The Remains Of the Day speaks in the first person narrative because he wants to present directly the thoughts and stream of consciousness effectively to the readers. Stevens talks to himself a lot. It is his method of rationalizing what is happening around him. The reader gets under the skin of Stevens and feels what he goes through. We feel empathy for Stevens as he displays signs of being colonized. He lives his life as a butler and assumes his professional identity even in his private realm. He has lost his personal self. We read about Stevens and realise how obsessed he is with his job. In his ardour to crave acceptance and assimilation into the richer class that is far beyond his means, he convinces himself that he is totally at ease with them, albeit in the role of a man servant. Indeed, when Stevens was mistaken for his master by newcomers, he doesn't correct them but talks as if he is indeed the lord. Stevens tried to convince himself that he is worthy because of his need to justify his low social status. The futility of Steven's wasted life comes as a blow to the readers as we read how he spends his days in dreaming of grandiose. In other words, Stevens could not de-colonise himself. Steven's diary shows the irony of how he has served his master with Nazi connections, only to have the Germans defeated and his very own home occupied by American victors, his master's enemies. Stevens is given the opportunity to find out that the aggressors are actually helpful and worthy gentlemen. This is one of the rare instances that he is confronted by a personal view that is not superimposed upon him by his employer. It is one of his self discoveries. Readers wonder if he will wake up sufficiently enough to realise his barren life was wasted in lifelong servitude. Stevens realises he likes Miss Kenton and he answers his sexual desire to see her only after twenty years! Even then, he makes up a legitimate excuse for going to the West Country area where Miss Kenton resides. He fails to confess his true desires and betrays himself ultimately. The remains of his older days were destined to go down the drain as well. Steven does not come to realisation of his self knowledge and his manhood remains oppressed. Steven's narrative reveals that his earlier life was spent as a loyal blind follower of a unworthy boss. Using the first person narrative, Ishiguro was able to show how naive Stevens was. He manages to poke fun at Stevens even in this tragic farce of a black comedy novel. Did Steven know what was really happening to him Did he feel anything that was truly his own and not as a paid manservant Perhaps he did but he wasn't strong enough to break away. Stevens failed in acquiring self knowledge and actualization of his latent potential. Charles Dicken's Great Expectations has Pip as the narrator who is a hypocrite. He abhors Magwitch because he symbolises poverty and what he himself represents. He lived his life of deceit and bourgeois pretentiousness until Magwitch came to visit him. Here comes the difference between Ishiguru's Stevens and Dicken's Pip. Pip comes to self knowledge of how he has been misled and deceived by Miss Havisham. Pip becomes a gentleman when he risks his life to save Magwitch. He comes to self actualisation. Pip wanted to get an education because he wanted to make himself worthy of pursuing Estella. He left his roots in search of betterment. Stevens left his secret love behind because of the ill conceived belief that there is more glory in self denial and sacrifice working for a so called icon of society, Lord Darlington. Both protagonists are obsessed with class. While Pip is painfully aware of his humble beginnings and recognises that some of his true friends are from the poor working class, Stevens does not like to be closely associated with his working class peers. Dickens used the first person narrative from the boy Pip's point of view because he wanted readers to know what life was like for an orphan at the mercy of relatives. He could portray. From the boy's perception, we read how he was oppressed, which gave rise to his rebellion against his poverty. Pip, just like Stevens, wanted to belong to the privileged class but Pip gains self-knowledge along his journey, is redeemed and gains a future. Stevens actually loves the hierarchy of classes and respects this imposed system too much to challenge it. Stevens, reflecting after some thirty years of service under oppression, never gains the self knowledge of his loss of identity. The remains of the day are lost for Stevens. Ishiguro shows how narrow minded, prejudiced and obnoxious a first person narrator can be. Stevens talked himself into visiting Miss Kenton because he wanted to believe her letter actually said she was eager to return to work at Darlington. He had a vivid imagination and used it to make excuses for his suppressed personal interest in Miss Kenton. Dickens, on the other hand, makes no disguise of Pip's love for Estella. He voices it and suffers ridicule and humiliation for his labour for love. Both Ishiguro and Dickens use farce in their novels. Dickens often used over exaggeration to write comedy into his characters. Pumblechook, Herbert, Wemmick and Joe have their comic traits. There are descriptive passages which incorporated the use of humor to lighten up the depression of the black comedy. Ishiguro did not use self depreciating comedy on Stevens. Stevens believed in his world too much to realise that he is the tragic figure in his personal narrative. Dickens' style often contained fairy tale elements. For example, in the original ending of Great Expectations, Pip and Estella went their separate ways. Dickens' readers in his life time objected to this tragic ending and forced him to reunite the star crossed lover, Pip. We see how a great novelist was compelled to bend to the whims of his readers who paid for his bread and butter. Ishiguro worked with his editor and publisher before publishing Remains of the day but was not asked to revise the ending to make it a happy one for Stevens. Ishiguro's style was not corrupted by readers. Ishiguro makes Stevens seem like a fool, whose imagination has run away with him, when Stevens imagines that Miss Kenton has written about latent desires to be united with Darlington and himself. Dickens' Pip, on the other hand, is well aware of the lack of interest from Estella, the object of his heart's desire. Where Ishiguro wrote about the fool Stevens' quest to Sacrifice personal desires, Dickens wrote about the fool Pip's quest for personal glories. Literature scholars have said that Dickens' use of the first person narrative and story content are material from his personal childhood. We observe that Dickens has used the first person narrator in only two novels. The other is David Copperfield, which he never published during his lifetime. The first person narrative is supposed to be more compatible with the reader because the reader sees everything through the eyes of the narrator. Dickens used a range of writing methods to create reader sympathy and empathy for Pip. What reader remains unmoved by the horrors young Pip faces in his struggle for existence Ishiguro placed his Stevens at the edge of high society by making him a butler. Dickens was different in his treatment of Pip. Pip got to live as a rich young man in London at the expense of his mysterious benefactor, Magwitch. It might be argued that because Pip savoured the high class society's life of debauchery, he found his self worth as distinct and apart from this behaviour. Pip appreciated Joe's visit and help when he fell ill. Stevens remained a dreamer, habouring dreams of being an elite high class citizen because he could not see the light of day. Both Ishiguro and Dickens used the retrospective technique to get their protagonists to reflect on their past. For Stevens, his memories blur with age and his recount of his tale is distorted and prejudiced; biased towards what he would like to believe in, instead of what really transpired. As for the adult Pip, the major face off came when Magwitch sought him out. Pip initially was turned off by the realisation that he had been duped all these years by Miss Havisham and Magwitch but he comes round to appreciate Magwitch for his generosity. Both Great Expectations and The Remains of the Day are critiques of the hierarchical structures of class in society. Both writers have disguised their works as fiction. Pip matures and his opinions change. Stevens grows old and his opinions do not change. We follow this passage of maturity in this acquisition of self knowledge. The use of the first person narrative is greatly advantageous as the same characters are reviewed by the same narrator. We hear Pip's innermost thoughts and are privileged to be at one with Pip. One strong controversy that Dickens highlighted in Great Expectations was the penal System in nineteenth century England. The destitute were imprisoned. The hardcore convicts were banished to Australia. Dickens used his novel to criticise the penal system of his society. Dickens verbosity helped him to create characters with depth. They were made interesting and memorable because of the wealth of information about them. He included humour especially in his exaggerations of the people and events around Pip. In my opinion, Dickens is a master story-teller. Almost all his chapters have cliffhangers. These serve to keep the reader hooked. Dickens named his novel Great Expectations to tell how a boy's great expectations did him more harm than good. He started his novel from the beginning whereas Ishiguro started his novel when his protagonist was an old man. The latent message is that a youth can change when he matures and achieves self knowledge. It was too late for an old man like Stevens to change. The end. References. Dickens, C., (1862). Great Expectations. Sheldon Publisher. Ishiguro, K., (1989). The Remains of the Day. Read More