When reading the first few pages of Remains of the Day I have to admit I was laughing. Stevens truly cracked me up, with all his “dignity” and “greatness” and the way he tried the best way he could to banter with Mr. Farraday. To me he seemed pretty hysterical. But as the book progressed I realized why this seemed funny to me; I had no respect for someone who took his job that seriously especially since he was just a butler. This was a sobering thought and I no longer read the book in a jovial manner. I began to reflect why I felt this way and I could think of nothing except of something that Stevens said about Mr. Farraday: “But then I do not mean to imply anything derogatory about Mr. Farraday; he is, after all, an American gentlemen and his ways are often very different.” I realize I have been raised in a very "different" and "Who cares" society that is very removed from Stevens, or at least it may be what Stevens is fighting against. I truly think this book can be seen as both a tragedy and a triumph in more ways than one, because it isn't just about a man who hides in his world of decorum and responsibility, but a man who is losing a fight with modern thought and the world and its changing lifestyles. I believe many of these "Modern" changes were good, but in some ways I think we have all lost a certain amount of loyalty and sense of duty to the way we work and live. To Stevens every task was important, every request needed a reply; of course Stevens took it to an extreme, but even with that extreme example we can see what to avoid. To me Stevens was a person of great feelings even if he didn’t know how to show all the feelings he had.
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I agree that loyalty is great and all, but I think that before one should commit oneself to a cause or to a person, they should first have a sense of loyalty to themselves. I'm not saying that a person needs to be self-serving, but that their primary focus needs to be on their own needs. Yes, he was a butler and it was his job to attend to his employer, but he forgot that he was a person, and didn't have a sense of self-worth. Any sacrifice was acceptable so long as it furthered Lord Darlington's cause. He had such loyalty to the man that he forgot that both men, Stevens and Darlington, were human beings, that Stevens had his own needs and wants, and that Darlington wasn't perfect. I think that if he had remembered this, then he would have been at least a better confidante to Darlington, if not a better a butler.
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