Context Flashcards
Lord Halifax
Senior British Conservative politicians of the 1930s. Nazi Sympathiser.
Herr Ribbentrop
Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. Correspondent between England and Germany.
Stevens as an Ideal Colonial Subject
The Remains of the Day is a novel about service and self-abnegation.
Although the novel maintains the readers attention on the singular introspection of one man’s career as an English butler, the novel nonetheless has wide reverberations as a political and social commentary.
One way to interpret the book’s excursion into the code of service and servitude is as an individualized model for the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized.
The paternal figure in which you place all your truth and worth because of the perceived belief in their superiority is reminiscent of colonial times.
Critic … Link between LD and S’s relationship to England’s relationship with its colonies
“dynamic between the upper and lower classes, exemplified by Lord Darlington and his butler, duplicates very precisely England’s relationship to its colonies. It is my contention that Stevens’ private tragedy is precipitate by what Albert Memmi in his seminal study The Colonizer and the Colonized terms the cruel ‘hoax’ by which the colonizer or master ensures that the servant exists ‘only as a function of the needs of the colonizer, i.e. be transformed into a pure colonized’“(MLS 3).
Harry Smith
He was the voice of Labour party, wanted an active engagement in the democratic process, through being involved in the local government.
yet smith was also politically confused; conservative streak on the ‘empire’; “I was hoping (stevens) would have a few words to say about your ideas on the empire, Doctors…Our Doctor here’s for all kinds of little countries going independent.. I know he is.” (wrong)
- Harry Smith still has an imperialist attitude like Stevens
-Stevens also thinks “democracy is something for a bygone era” no need for “universal suffrage.”
Doctor Carlisle
personified by social changes, he represents the NHS and socialist views.
also anti-colonial views ‘little countries going independent.”
when LD becomes anti semitic as symbolised by his firing of the jewish maids. nazi sympathiser.
“I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking, Stevens. A great deal of thinking. And I’ve reached my conclusion. We cannot have jews on the staff here at Darlington Hall. (LD) 154-5
S recalling his brother’s un glorified death during the Boer War. Boer war was a British embarrassment.
interesting parallels can be drawn between Stevens and his brother Leonard, as they both entrust their lives (quite literally in Leonards case), into the hands of incompetent men and both pay the price.
“… a most un-British attack on civilian Boer settlements…my brother among them- had died quite needlessly.”
The gentlemen like LD felt that world affairs should be treated in an old fashioned sportsmanship way. The germans had lost, now it was appropriate as gentlemen to help the losers up and for all to be forgotten, as it is done in sport. (2 quotes)
“Some were gentlemen who felt strongly, like the Lordship himself, that fair play had not been done at Versailles and that it was immoral to go on punishing a nation for a war that was now over.”
“deeply disturbing. It does us great discredit to treat a defeated foe like this. A complete break with the traditions of this country.”
LD friendship with Bremen (german aristocracy) led him to be interested in the Treaty of Versailles. Shows that he was more interested in upper class chums than cold politics. illustrated how LD motivated by ideas of gentlemen behaviour.
but by his friendship with Herr Karl-Heinz Bremann.
Mr Lloyd George had a meeting at Darlington Hall.
“Our prime minister of that time, Mr Lloyd George, had called for another great conference to be held in Italy in the spring of 1922, and initially his lordships aims was to organise a gathering at Darlington Hall with a view to ensuring a satisfactory outcome to this event.”
America senater Lewis who is deceitful, is reminiscent of the current actions of america in 1956.
- america had self interest, placed their economic interest in oil over their relations with Britain. they wanted to fuel the automobile industry that was booming.
- remains, lewis is also economically self interested and ‘duplicitous’. He does not want to relax terms of Versailles as will not get the repayment of american war loans.
Personal links between Nazis and people high up in the British Cabinet.
Lord Halifax was the powerful foreign secretary.
“As things turned out, that particular visit was simply the first of such an ‘unofficial meetings between Lord Halifax and the German Ambassador at the time, Herr Rippentrop.”
Sir Oswald Mosely and the Blackshirts were nazis, gained a lot of power in Britain and the leader had stayed at LD house, evident that despite Stevens insistence, LD was a nazi sympathiser, perhaps representing many people’s views at the time.
“And as for the British Union of Fascists, I can only say that any talk linking his lordship to such people is quite ridiculous. Sir Oswald Moseley, the gentlemen who led the ‘blackshirts’ was a visitor at Darlington Hall on, I would say, three occasions at the most.”
Harry Smith is a symbol of the Labour party that came in after Churchill, he is preaching about the how politics and decisions should be decided on democracy and not the gentleman aristocracy that had prevailed for so long behind closed doors.
“We won the right to be free citizens. And it’s one of the privileges of being born English that no matter who you are you’re born os that you can express your opinion freely and vote in your member of parliament.” Harry Smith.
