Disnarration in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

This study discusses the disnarrated in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day by focusing on Gerald Prince’s ideas on the disnarrated. According to Prince, disnarration refers to events that have not happened but have been mentioned in the narrative. There are two modes for representing disnarration in the narrative of the novel: implicit and explicit. In the former, the disnarrated is represented by techniques like symbols, metonymies and foil characters. In the later, it is explicitly stated that a particular event could have happened but have not happened. However, based on Ishiguro’s preoccupation with the suppression of meaning, the majority of disnarrated narratives are implicit rather than explicit. The narrator’s implicit remarks signify his lost opportunities for the things he could have had. Nearly at the ending of the novel, however, the narrator offers a more honest attitude to the readers by explicitly talking about his regrets and lost opportunities.


INTRODUCTION
The first person who used the word 'disnarrated' was Gerald Prince who in his article published by the same name in 1988 announced that the disnarrated refers to "those passages in a narrative that consider what did not or does not take place" (1988, p.1). Within the same article, he also refers to the unnarated which according to him is quite the opposite of the disnarrated; while the former refers to those events that happen but are not mentioned in the narrative, the later "covers all the events that do not happen but, nonetheless, are referred to by the narrative text" (1988, p. 2). Based on the definitions Prince has provided, the disnarrated is the world of conditional sentences; the lives one could lead but did not manage to lead; the things one could have but did not have the chance to have or dared not have; and not just these, but to talk or think about these in the narratives. Such narratives are more frequently used when the characters are not satisfied with the lives they are living or are preoccupied with a sense of lack. Characters who are happy with their lives rarely consider thinking about other lives they could have had. The representation of loss, failure and pessimistic views towards life are among frequent themes in twentieth-century novels and what this study is trying to do is the depiction of the disnarrated in one of the most famous novels of twentieth century about nostalgic desires toward the past and a possible chance of compensating for a lost life.
The Japanese-born, English-raised Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most popular British writers of his generation and is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels. Ishiguro's name and reputation extends far beyond the world of English-language readers; his works have been translated into twentyseven foreign languages, and the feature film version of The Remains of the Day "was nominated for eight Academy Awards" (Shaffer, 1998, p. 4). Ishiguro's narratives and his employment of distinct narrative techniques make his works absolutely distinguished. One of the most distinctive and recurring techniques of Ishiguro is his preoccupations with memories and memory-telling. Ishiguro's own remarks about his tendency toward memory-telling will help to understand the argument of the present discussion better: … I need to keep reminding people that the flashbacks aren't just a clinical, technical means of conveying things that happened in the past. This is somebody turning over certain memories, in the light of his current emotional condition. I like blurred edges around these events, so you're not quite certain if they really happened and you're not quite certain to what extent the narrator is deliberately coloring them. (as cited in Kelman, 1989, p. 48) Perhaps the best manifestation of Ishiguro's reliance toward the past and memories could be seen in our case study: The Remains of the Day. It is the story of an aged English butler, Mr. Stevens, who works in Darlington Hall and who at the start of the novel is looking forward to undertaking a journey, the goal of which is visiting the former housekeeper Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn). Stevens who is now under the employee of Mr. Farraday, an American gentleman, declares that the journey he is about to start is merely for professional reasons and is due to the lack of staff at Darlington Hall which has caused him to commit minor errors. In order to solve this problem, he has in mind to ask Miss Kenton whose recent letter triggers the journey, to return to the Hall. Throughout this journey, Stevens creates a mental diary of his life over this trip, aiming to come to terms with his life choices and his ultimate direction. First of all he declares that a great butler is a man of dignity, a characteristic which he persistently claims to possess and which will be highlighted by the narrator's accounts of his exhibiting this professionalism at the expense of his human feelings.
Stevens also brings in mind his past memories during the time he was at the service of the late Lord Darlington to whom he is so much professionally attached. One can say that the majority of the novel is about the relationship between Stevens and Miss Kenton which the butler insistently calls professional.
Throughout the novel Miss Kenton shows many clues with regard to her desire for Stevens; from bringing flowers to his room to being angry for his indifference toward her going out with another man. The second related article is "The suppression of meaning in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day" (2020) by Sareh Khosravi and Behzad Barekat. Within this comprehensive research, the researchers tried to focus on "the way the language of the novel suppresses the meaning" (p. 97). They considered the unreliability of the narrator and the employment of figurative language as two important means for the actualization of meaning suppression. Though what they mean by the suppression of meaning is to some extent in line with the implicit manner of the disnarrated, they are not at all concerned with disnarration; actually their research falls into the category of the unnarrated (and the unnarratable ) which, according to Prince, is quite the opposite of disnarration (cf. Prince, 1988, p. 2). The following sections, by using parts of the abovementioned researches, make the attempt to study The Remains of the Day by focusing on disnarration (rather than narration or unnarration) proposed by Gerald Prince.

THE DISNARRATED IN THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
The Remains of the Day because of its preoccupation with a butler who has devoted his whole life to his professional career has a good potentiality to be discussed in issues related to the disnarrated. The butler's plunging into his professional tasks ended up in a life devoid of any meaning and joy within which he suppressed a probable love affair he could have with the housekeeper. There are two manners for representing the disnarrated in this novel which will be discussed in the following sections.

Implicit Manner of the Disnarrated
In implicit manner of disnarration, one does not explicitly refer to events that could have happened, rather one uses implicit ways of referring to such events. Ishiguro's narrative style allows for such hidden and implicit ways of narration. In an interview, when asked about his style of writing, Ishiguro answered: The language I use tends to be the sort that actually suppresses the meaning and tries to hide away meaning rather than chase after something just beyond the reach of words. I am interested in the way words hide meaning. (as cited in Vorda and Herzinger, 2008, pp. 70-71) In another interview he repeated the same thing about his style of writing: I quite like language that suppresses meaning rather than language that goes groping after something that's slightly beyond the words. I'm interested in speech that kind of conceals and covers up. … I do like a flat, plain surface where the meaning is subtly pushed between the lines rather than overtly expressed. (Chang, 2015) The two excerpts quoted above show the author's preoccupation with concealment and suppression rather than revelation. Overt and explicit manner of narration is not common in an Ishiguro narrative. Based on what the author of the novel says about his own style of writing, it is no surprise at all to see the implicit manner of narration or disnarration in his narratives. The study considers symbol, metonymy and the depiction of foil characters as three implicit ways for representing the disnarrated in The Remains of the Day.
One of the ways for showing the implicit manner of the disnarrated is the use of symbols. According to A Handbook to Literature "On the most literal level, a symbol is something which is itself and yet stands for or suggests or means something else" (Holman, 1980, p. 436). In this sense, a symbol evokes and suggests a meaning beyond itself. For instance, there is a scene in the novel where Stevens is reading a sentimental love story. The narrator himself justifies his choice of reading as improving his "command of English" (Ishiguro, 1993, p.167), and a little further he confesses that: I did at times gain a sort of incidental enjoyment from these stories. I did not perhaps acknowledge this to myself at the time, but as I say, what shame is there in it? Why should one not enjoy in a light-hearted sort of way stories of ladies and gentlemen who fall in love and express their feelings for each other, often 'in the most elegant phrases? (p.168) One might think that here the narrator is explicitly talking about his desire toward love stories rather than implicitly, but one should note that though the narrator is confessing his interest in such love stories, he is not linking them to his life. What he is offering is his interest in reading such materials. So this quotation in spite of being confessional in tone is still implicit on some more important aspects. The reader, however, does not fail to consider the love story as a symbol for Stevens' desire for love. This is what Niederhoff has also signified in his article: It reveals Stevens' longing for love in general and his desire for Miss Kenton in particular. … The episode also reveals Miss Kenton's love for Stevens; it contains one of her many attempts to pierce his professional armour and to find the man inside the butler. (2011, p. 171) The love story acts as a symbol; on the surface it is a book the narrator is reading to improve his command of the English language and in this case it cannot have anything to do with disnarration but on another level, the love story shows (implicitly) that though Stevens has not actualized a love relation in his real life, he puts himself in the shoes of those characters in the sentimental love story perhaps to enjoy the indirect joy of the pursuit of love and falling in love.
The journey Stevens is undertaking can be considered as a symbol as well. A large bulk of the novel revolves around Stevens' journey to where Miss Kenton lives.
On the surface he is on his way to persuade Miss Kenton to return to her post as a housekeeper in Darlington Hall (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 5), but on an underlying layer he is returning to his past. By this journey, Stevens who is immersed in his bygone memories, is trying to retrieve his past and give a second chance to himself about actualizing his past unmade decisions. As a matter of fact, this physical journey is accompanied by a metaphorical one which implicitly refers to the disnarrated events that the narrator does not desire to disclose. Within this symbolic journey, the narrator leads us through different past encounters he had with Miss Kenton which probably have no significance except for showing his strong desire for the former housekeeper.
Apart from the love-story scene which showed the encounter between the two characters, there are a number of other situations which put light on the narrator's longing for his lost love affair. One of these symbolic journeys the narrator leads us to, is the night Miss Kenton informs Stevens of accepting the marriage proposal of her acquaintance. When hearing this news, Stevens on the surface shows no reaction and even offers his congratulations and considers a replacement for her tasks: "Ah, is that so, Miss Kenton? Then may I offer you my congratulations. … I will do my best to secure a replacement at the earliest opportunity" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 218 Metonymy, as one of the most important figurative devices, is defined as "a figure of language and thought in which one entity is used to refer to, or in cognitive linguistic terms 'provide access to', another entity to which it is somehow related" (Littlemore, 2015, p. 4).
One of the most conspicuous manifestations of metonymy in the novel is a letter Miss Kenton has written for Stevens. Apart from the fact that Miss Kenton's letter triggers Stevens' journey, there are some other reasons for the significance of the letter in the novel. This is what Khosravi and Barekat in their article The suppression of meaning in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day" (2020) have also pointed out. They believe that the relation between the letter and Miss Kenton is that of product-producer. The narrator's recurrent readings of the letter and his attempts to figure out Miss Kenton's real intentions show his preoccupation with the housekeeper. "His physical engagement with the letter is a clue for his metonymic engagement with the housekeeper" (p. 107).
The fact that the narrator refers to the last letter of the housekeeper 22 times throughout the novel, by itself proves his strong attachment not only to the letter but also to the housekeeper. From the very beginning to the very end of the novel, the narrator is preoccupied with the content of the letter and is trying to read and reread between the lines to get a better understanding of the housekeeper's future intentions. A number of these references will be highlighted here: So it was in this instance; that is to say, my receiving the letter from Miss Kenton, containing as it did, along with its long, rather unrevealing passages, an unmistakable nostalgia for Darlington Hall, and -I am quite sure of thisdistinct hints of her desire to return here, obliged me to see my staff plan afresh. (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 9) The phrase 'unrevealing passages' provides an extra proof for the narrator to plunge into the letter since it requires a more in-depth analysis. Somewhere else he confesses rereading the letter several times: "I have, I should make clear, reread Miss Kenton's recent letter several times, and there is no possibility I am merely imagining the presence of these hints on her part" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 10). One should also note that the narrator is not just engaged in reading the letter but also thinking about it in his free time: "Now, in these quiet moments as I wait for the world about to awake, I find myself going over in my mind again passages from Miss Kenton's letter" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 47).
These physical and mental or better to say, metonymic preoccupations with the letter are implicitly signifying on the one hand, the narrator's regrets for his lost past and on the other hand, his hope for a second chance with the housekeeper. That is why he repeatedly imagines about her 'deep nostalgia' for returning to Darlington Hall: Admittedly, she does not at any point in her letter state explicitly her desire to return; but that is the unmistakable message conveyed by the general nuance of many of the passages, imbued as they are with a deep nostalgia for her days at Darlington Hall. (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 48) The narrator by having a close reading of the letter is trying to trace some indications for Miss Kenton's desire to her previous occupation. Since if the housekeeper is not willing to return, then they would not be able to reunite in the near future. So all along, he is attempting to find some evidence for her desire as well: But to return to her letter. It does at times reveal a certain despair over her present situation -a fact that is rather concerning. She begins one sentence: 'Although I have no idea how I shall usefully fill the remainder of my life ...' And again, elsewhere, she writes: 'The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me.' (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 49) Based on these excerpts and their elaborations, one can consider the letter as an implicit manner of disnarration, since the letter has evoked a sense of nostalgia for the past in the narrator which he wants to renew, perhaps in better ways. Actually, he wants the housekeeper back in Darlington Hall to compensate for a lost past.
The other implicit way for representing the disnarrated in the novel is the existence of foil characters. "A character in a work who, by sharp contrast, serves to stress and highlight the distinctive temperament of the protagonist is termed a foil" (Abrams, 1999, p. 221). A girl called Lisa comes to Darlington Hall and under the supervision of Miss Kenton performs her tasks in the best way possible. But after a nine-month period, she vanishes "from the house together with the second footman" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 157), leaving a letter for Miss Kenton within which she explains about her love for the guy and her reason for leaving the job and pursuing another life: "We don't have money but who cares we have love and who wants anything else we've got one another that's all anyone can ever want" (Ishiguro, 1993, p.157). Here the narrator remembers the scene after which he and Miss Kenton have just read Lisa's letter when the housekeeper says: "She's so foolish. She might have had a real career in front of her. She had ability. So many young women like her throwaway their chances, and all for what?" To this Steven replies: "Indeed, Such a waste, as you say" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 158).
One cannot fail to notice that Lisa's decision about her life had its impact on Miss Kenton's decision. What one could see in Lisa and the second footman is related to their choice. They could choose to stay in Darlington Hall and continue their duties but they chose to start a new and a more adventurous life with each other. One cannot ignore the similarities and differences between these two minor characters and Stevens and Miss Kenton who could also lead such a life but deprived themselves of that. Because to the reader's surprise, Miss Kenton herself does what Lisa had done before her; she marries a butler of another house and leaves her career. But before that, she had done what she could to figure out Stevens' feelings toward her. Only after finding no trace of feelings on his part is she able to marry somebody else. Therefore, once more an indication of an implicit manner of the disnarrated has been shown.

Explicit Manner of the Disnarrated
In the explicit manner of the disnarrated, as opposed to the implicit manner, the narrator or character explicitly refers to the conditional lives he/she could have. Based on Ishiguro's tendency toward concealment and suppression of meaning, one can find fewer traces for explicit manner of disnarration in his narratives. However, the more we proceed toward the ending of the novel the more we encounter the explicit manner of disnarrated. This motives us to divide the novel in two sections: before and after the narrator's appointment with the former housekeeper. Before the appointment the majority of the disnarrated remarks were implicit, since the narrator had not yet come into terms with his past mistakes. But after the narrator's appointment with Miss Kenton nearly at the ending of the novel, many of his misunderstandings with regard to his past were resolved and one can say that Stevens came to a kind of recognition about his life. His awareness of his own mistakes makes him think about the possible lives he could have in more explicit ways. Consequently, at the end of the novel one sees more clues of explicit manner of disnarration than any other part of the novel.  (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 239) Here Miss Kenton is explicitly referring to a possible life she and Stevens could have if it weren't for Stevens' conservative manner of behavior toward love. To this Stevens replies by agreeing with the fact that there is no 'turning back the clock' which signifies his awareness of the mistakes he had made. He also admits that when Miss Kenton was talking about the possible life they could have with each other, "a certain degree of sorrow" (p.239) was provoked within him and that his "heart was breaking" (p. 239).
So it's not surprising when one sees that the tone of the novel changes nearly at the end, with the narrator looking forward to the future in order to make the best of his remaining life: … [T]hat I should cease looking back so, much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.
After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 244) Having come to a kind of recognition about his past mistakes, Stevens aims to compensate for his past errors and make the best choices so that he may no longer regret what he does. Hence, the importance of the novel's title has been highlighted.

CONCLUSION
Based on the definition Gerald Prince has provided for the disnarrated in his article published by the same name in 1988, this article focused on the representation of the disnarrated in the narrative of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. The study offered two manners of representing the disnarrated in the narrative of the novel: the implicit and the explicit manner. Based on what Ishiguro has said about the suppression of meaning which is his style of writing, the study claimed that the majority of the disnarration in this novel was of the implicit kind. Symbol, metonymy and the depiction of foil characters are among important means by which the disnarrated events were manifested in the implicit manners. The study offered objects and concepts that implicitly connoted the desire of the narrator for a better life he could lead, without explicitly mentioning such a desire. This could be one of the most important findings of the present research.
To show the disnarration through techniques and literary devices is a new strategy that requires more and more research. Warhol has referred to the potential of literary devices in unnarration but here we tried to show it in disnarration as well. Still more research needs to be done in this realm.
Another important finding of the present research was the division of the novel in two sections: before and after the narrator's meeting with Miss Kenton; before the meeting the majority of the disnarrated events were mentioned implicitly but after the narrator's appointment with the former housekeeper most of the disnarrated remarks were explicitly mentioned rather than implicitly. The reason lies in the fact that after the meeting, the narrator reaches a kind of recognition about his past mistakes and sees no reason in deceiving himself. Therefore both he and Miss Kenton explicitly mention the lives they could have if things were different and that there is no point in looking back at the past; or in Stevens' own terms: "I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day" (Ishiguro, 1993, p. 244).