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A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)"
A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)"
A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)"
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A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)"

By Gale and Cengage

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A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 27, 2016
ISBN9781535839228
A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)"

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    A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day, The (Lit-to-Film)" - Gale

    12

    The Remains of the Day

    Kazuo Ishiguro

    1993

    Introduction

    When the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day was released in 1993, audiences had every reason to expect a quality cinematic experience. The novel that served as the basis for the film had been an international success when it was published in 1989, winning the coveted Mann Booker Prize for Fiction. The film was adapted by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, who had produced a string of adaptations of literary works, including Henry James's The Europeans and The Bostonians, Jean Rhys's Quartet, Carson McCuller's The Ballad of the Sad Café, and three novels by E. M. Forster—A Room with a View, Maurice, and Howard's End. The film's screenplay was written by frequent collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who had written scripts for more than fifteen of their movies, including their first, an adaptation of Jhabvala's own novel The Householder in 1963. A Merchant Ivory production was expected to be a quality period piece that captured the tone of some of the most refined literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and The Remains of the Day was no exception.

    The story it tells centers around James Stevens, who has served as the head butler in a British manor house for decades. Near the end of his life, when he realizes that he has watched life slip away as he struggled to perfect his professional performance, the story follows Stevens on a journey across England to reunite with the woman who may have been the great love of his life. His trip takes him through a series of flash-backs, during which viewers see the decline of the British Empire between the two World Wars play out among the aristocracy passing through Darlington Hall, the house over which Stevens presides. Actor Anthony Hopkins was hailed by critics worldwide as the very embodiment of Ishiguro's fastidious butler, and Emma Thompson was lauded as his equal as the former housekeeper whose memory haunts him. The Remains of the Day was nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1993, but, competing in a particularly strong field that year, it failed to capture any.

    Plot Summary

    The opening credits of this film play over a shot of cars driving up the long drive leading to Darlington Hall. A voiceover plays the narration of the letter that Mrs. Benn, formerly Miss Kenton, has sent to Mr. Stevens, the head butler at Darlington Hall. She discusses having read in the newspaper that Darlington Hall was to be sold after the death of Lord Darlington. As she discusses the fact that an American millionaire named Jack Lewis (a Mr. Farraday in Ishiguro's novel) bought the hall, the auction for many of the home's treasures is shown. Her letter speculates whether this Lewis might be the same American congressman who attended the conference in 1936, introducing this important event into the film.

    Her recollection of her years at Darlington as the happiest in her life leads to images of Stevens and the footmen and under-butlers he commanded in the years when the house was fully staffed. She says she has left her husband for good and is staying in Kingston, at a

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