Salvaging Consciousness from the Remains of the Day: A Sartrean Analysis

The article attempts to delve into Sartre’s main concepts in existential school of thought and trace their relevance in British modern-day fiction, particularly, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. The novel’s protagonist stands as the individual whose tracing of the modern dynamics is inherent in the interplay of social position and individual autonomy. The analysis seeks to underline the junction between disciplines of philosophy and literature, and notably, through Steven’s journey, to offer an interdisciplinary reading of the individual’s strife with freedom and responsibility that is emblematic of the contemporary age. The existential journey of Stevens, a devoted butler whose unshakable commitment to duty, professionalism, and the allure of the concept of dignity leads him to the exploration of self-deceit and repression of his authentic self. The title of the novel, too, captures Stevens’ struggle with his shattered sense of self and the ruins of a life given up to conform to social norms. Sartrean existentialism reveals this repression of genuine feelings and subsequent experience of emptiness. As a man deeply identified with his role, Stevens is tailor-made for this attainment and exploration of self-realization, humankind’s north pole of authenticity, as Sartrean terms, against life’s facticity. The concepts of “bad faith”, “reflective awareness”, “pre-reflective awareness”, “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself” as well as “being-for-others” will be utilized to further trace this awakening from the clutches, and modern-day chains shackled on individual life, the exploration of the conscious self and Stevens’ consequential reclamation of the remains of the day.