Symbols

Question 1

Stevens’ Father

Answer 1

I can well imagine how he must have looked that day, framed by the doorway of the vehicle, his dark, severe presence quite blotting out the effect of the gentle Hertfordshire scenery behind him.

Question 2

S’s father face

Answer 2

the edges of my father’s craggy, lined, still awesome features.

Question 3

Silhouette

Answer 3

Miss K’s figure, a silhouette against a window within one of them, had called to me.

Question 4

Stevens’ father falls ill

Answer 4

my father’s figure could be seen frozen in a posture that suggested he was talking part in some ceremonial ritual.

Question 5

Hands

Answer 5

S’s father: gazed tiredly at the backs of his hands… as though he were faintly irritated by them.

Kenton: She looked at her hands. - after she told S of his father’s death

Question 6

Tired?

Answer 6

The strains of a hard day. - ‘You look as though you’re crying.’

Question 7

The type of cars in the novel

Answer 7

The Ford - American

Bentley - British

Question 8

wireless

Answer 8

listening to the wireless

Question 9

Giffen and Co.

Answer 9

Giffen’s appeared at the beginning of the twenties, and I am sure I am not alone in closely associating its emergence with that change of mood within our profession - that change which came to push the polishing of silver to the position of central importance it still by and large maintains today.

The silver polish company in Mursden that is closing down is a symbol for the obsolescence of Stevens’s profession. Indeed, the butler is also almost entirely obsolete by 1956. It is significant that Stevens knows all about the quality of the silver polish, the houses in which it was used, and so on—though he knows an incredible amount of detail about all things related to the maintenance of a great household, his knowledge is no longer nearly as important as it once was. There is no longer the demand that there once was in England for either silver polish or butlers; they are a part of a bygone era.