“The fact is, over the past few months, I have been responsible for a series of small errors in the carrying out of my duties.”

Stevens approaches The Remains of the Day as a form of confession. For a man who has spent most of his adult life cultivating an air of quiet dignity, the novel offers him a space where he can admit to making mistakes. He begins slowly by referring to a “series of small errors” (6) in the workplace that slowly escalates until he is wrestling with the idea of whether or not he has wasted his life.

“Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.”

Stevens is a man stuck in a bygone age. He dwells on his memories because he feels ill-fitted for modern life. He is desperate for some form of human connection, though he will never admit to this. Instead, he tries to foster empathy with others by insisting that “many of us” (8) share his reluctance to let go of the past. As evidenced in the novel, however, few people cling to the past in the same fundamentalist way that Stevens does.

“I must say, I was rather disappointed, for I would like to have discussed the bantering question with him.”

The so-called banter that Farraday introduces to Darlington Hall is a key issue for Stevens. To the aging butler, the notion that he should joke with his employer is remarkably and horrifically modern.